


Life's Not a Dating Simulator-- It's a Telltale Game

by Lamerei



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: College AU, College kids grapple with a bit of anxiety, Female pronouns for Pidge, Group chat, M/M, Mentions of War, Mutual Pining, Strangers to Lovers, also the Shallura is minor but it's gonna be there, and the strangers to lovers is with respect to both Klance and Shallura, it's teen for language honestly, little bit of blood is mentioned, lots of gaming descriptions, mentions of amputations, more tags to come with future updates, oblivious boys, shiro is also keith's adoptive brother, sorry about the calc 3 mentions, video game club
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2018-12-31 03:24:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 33,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12123468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lamerei/pseuds/Lamerei
Summary: When Lance, Pidge, and Hunk find themselves short one person in order to compete in a video game tournament, Pidge finds a fourth player: Keith. While they prepare for the tournament, Lance slowly realizes that he may have a huge crush on his newfound rival, and doesn't know how to tell him, or how to even start approaching him. After all, as every Telltale game has told him:Your actions will have consequences.





	1. Select Player 4

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! This is the first story I have ever written and I don't have much of it planned out yet, so updates might be a bit slow, especially since I'm busy with college.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it!

Lance is lying face down on the floor of their apartment, groaning. He, Pidge, and Hunk were all gathered in their dorm room, studying for a chemistry exam that they’ve been dreading since the day it was announced. Lance had tried his hardest to avoid studying, even doing other homework in place of studying, but Pidge and Hunk finally got him to sit still. It was a few weeks into their first semester of their sophomore year at Altea University, and they were just getting back into the swing of things—between classes and clubs—when the trio received some bad news from a friend of theirs, hence Lance’s tantrum.

Last year, the three had joined a video game club together that casually hung out and played games, as well as practiced for competitions. Since they were freshmen, they weren’t really the ones representing the club at any competitions, but they still competed in some of the events. The ones who really shined were the seniors, but now that they graduated, it was their turn to bring home a trophy. The competition they’d be competing in this year was held at a conference center close by called The Castle, which year-round is used for a bunch of different conventions and large-scale gatherings, such as the local comic-con and farmer’s market, among others.

Unfortunately, for the competition’s team games, you need a group of four to get past the qualifying round, and for the finals you need six people. Last year, the fourth player on their team was a foreign student named Slav, and he was ridiculously skilled at team games. However, Slav had left suddenly before this year started, and left the trio at a loss. While they could still compete in the singles and the doubles, they agreed that they wouldn’t leave someone out just to participate in doubles. It was their code of solidarity among the trio, since they went through most of school together, and planned to keep doing everything together.

So, with that in mind, Lance had already given up on competing in this year’s competition at all, and was moping face-down into the plush carpeting of their dorm. Pidge and Hunk have been listening to him whine and groan for the past… 30 minutes? Hour? Honestly, they lost track of time, but they’ve had enough. Pidge was especially fed up with Lance, since they were _supposed_ to be studying for an exam tomorrow.

“C’mon buddy, you need to get up. You know moping isn’t gonna help and you need to study,” Hunk said, pity lining his voice.

Lance rolled over onto his back and whined again, “But Huuuunk, I’ve been looking forward to this _all summer_. Then Slav just up and left without giving us ANY warning! One week he was here and the next he was sending us a postcard from Europe! _Europe_ , Hunk! You’d think he woulda said something sooner.”

Pidge rubbed at her temples, briefly considering throwing a book into Lance’s pity party, “Well it’s not like we really hung out all that much, Lance. We only ever hung out at the clubroom to practice for the tournament. I don’t see why he’d need to give _us_ any notice.”

“He gave _Sven_ a heads up!”

“Sven was his best friend! Of course he gave him a heads up!”

“Oh, and _we_ weren’t his friends?”

Pidge rolled her eyes, “Lance, there’s a difference and you know it,”

“Whatever,” Lance said, pouting. He sat up and crossed his legs, resting his arm on his leg and chin in his hand, “I just wish we at least had a fourth player…”

At this rate, they were never going to finish studying for their exam. Pidge, quick as ever, came up with an idea, “Lance, if I said I knew a guy who _might_ cooperate with us, will you please shut up and study?” She had someone in mind, and she knew they wouldn’t like the idea initially, but she had her ways.

Lance straightened and his face brightened a bit, “First of all, _rude_. Second, if he gives us a shot at actually competing then toss a book my way, Pidgeotto!” Lance held a hand up in the air, grinning, and Pidge tossed a book Lance’s way that caught him off-guard, as it was much, _much_ bigger than he thought it’d be, “Pidge! What the hell!”

“Start reading, Lance.”

 

\-----------

 

Keith tapped his fingers quietly on the kitchen counter. With his other hand, he adjusted his glasses and continued reading. He didn’t really need to study any more for this exam, but he just wanted to go over some topics that he was a little shaky on. He looked up from his book momentarily to watch his brother, Shiro, prepare their dinner for the night. As he stirred the sauce in the pot, the smell of spices and tomatoes filled the room, and made Keith’s stomach growl.  Shiro was probably the best cook that Keith knew, though he really hadn’t eaten anyone else’s home cooking, but regardless, he had a talent for it.

“So Keith, how’s studying going?” Shiro looked up from the pot, blowing on a spoonful of the sauce so he could taste it.

Keith closed the book he was reading, “I was just glancing over a few things last-minute. I’m ready.”

“That’s good. Of course I wasn’t worried, you’ve always been a pretty smart kid.” He smiled as he sampled his concoction, delight highlighting his features.

Keith smirked as he returned the book back to his bag. Shiro always bragged about him being smart and at the top of his class, and from anybody else it wouldn’t mean a thing, but from his brother, the only family he has left, it pulled at his heart strings a bit.

Of course he tried not to let it show too much.

“You always say that,” he said, rolling his eyes a bit.

As Keith went to put his backpack in his room, Shiro retorted, “That’s because it’s true, Keith, you know that.”

Keith shook his head. His grades weren’t _that_ impressive, Shiro just liked to play it up. Getting an A in his classes has always come easily, and he’s never really had an issue understanding most any material he is presented with. It was all simple, with several topics relating to one another, making the concepts all that much easier to comprehend. But no matter what Keith said, Shiro always treated Keith’s accomplishments as something to celebrate. Shiro was always there for him, supporting him, even when Keith doesn’t ask him to. He was his rock, the place he turned to for guidance when he wasn’t at the top of his game, which is why Keith thought it was all the more ridiculous that Shiro painted him as this infallible genius who rarely faltered. He has seen Keith at his weakest, so Keith doesn’t know why Shiro thinks he’s so perfect.

To be honest, it put a lot of pressure on Keith. He’d never admit it though, because he didn’t want to seem like he wasn’t appreciating his brother’s support, and he didn’t want to hurt Shiro like that, even unintentionally.

Shiro turned the stovetop off, drained the pot of pasta into the sink, and mixed just enough sauce into the pasta so that it was covered in it, but not so it was drowning in it. He called to Keith in the other room, “Dinner’s ready!”

 

\------

 

Cup of coffee secured in her hand, Pidge trudged over to her seat in the lecture hall. She didn’t want an 8:30 class, but this was a required class and this was the only section that had seats left when she registered. Luckily, she had met someone equally as unenthused as her, and they became friends. On the first day of class this year, she walked into the room and saw that, among the very few open seats, she had to choose between sitting next to a loud jock or a kid playing on his phone. Needless to say, she sat next to the quiet kid.

Making her way over, she could see on the screen of his phone that he was playing a game she was highly familiar with: Hearthstone. He wasn’t doing very well, and seemed to be growing impatient with it, but everyone did poorly at first. He was playing as a Druid, and was definitely holding his own against the Rogue he was fighting, but clearly the Rogue had the upper-hand. Every minion the black-haired boy sent out, the Rogue destroyed and summoned another two, it seemed. As Pidge sat down next to him, he lost and furrowed his brow as he watched his level go up for his defeat.

While taking out her books, he started up another round, this time against a Shaman. It was starting out better for him this time, but just as quickly as his luck got better, it got worse. Again, he was overcome by the opponent’s minions and defeated.

“You’re focusing too much on defeating the minions before attacking your opponent. Opponent can’t fight if he’s dead,” Pidge said, offhandedly.

The boy turned, a small pout on his face and one of his brows quirked up in disbelief. He started up a new round without saying anything, taking on the Rogue again. This time, he was able to attack his enemy more directly while also making sure he had a minion with taunt on his side. It was close, but he managed to finally beat them. He smirked, though it was barely noticeable, but Pidge caught a glimpse of it.

He turned back to Pidge, “You play?”

“Yeah, I’ve been playing for a while now. Did you just start?” Pidge asked. Keith’s brow furrowed, and he shot her a glare. She chuckled, “Hey man, we all suck at first, plus you’re still fighting NPC’s and you usually stop doing that after you get through the tutorial,” She said, rummaging through her bag for a pen.

“Oh,” he mumbled, seemingly less offended now.

 _Fuck, did I forget to pack pens? How? How do you forget pens?_ Just as she was going to concede defeat and re-read the lecture notes later, a pen appeared in front of her face.

“Here, I brought extras,”

Pidge smiled, “Hey, thanks!” She nodded her head in thanks, “I’m Pidge, by the way.”

“Pidge?”

“Long story short: my best friends call me Pidge, so I introduce myself as ‘Pidge’ rather than ‘Katie’, especially since I respond to Pidge about 200% more than Katie,”

The boy smiled a bit. It was barely noticeable, but it was there, “I’m Keith,”

“Good to meet ya, Keith,”

 

\------

 

Several weeks later into the semester, Pidge was plopping down next to Keith with her usual cup of coffee in hand, “Mornin’ Keith,” She said. He looked up at her, seeing that her eyes were heavy with sleep-deprivation, as if her hunched posture wasn’t enough to give away just how dead-tired she was.

“Hey Pidge,”

“You ready for the Chem exam today?” She sipped on her coffee, her expression perking up a little.

Keith nodded, “Yep, how about you?”

Pidge yawned again, “Well, I’d feel more ready if I had gone to sleep when I had intended to. Instead I stayed up with Lance and Hunk going over concepts with them, mainly Lance, because, and I quote, ‘I hate chemistry with a _passion_ that burns hotter than any stupid reaction, screw heat transfer,” she said, reenacting Lance’s exasperated tone.

Keith chuckled, “Not very… eloquent?”

“That’s Lance for you,” She continued sipping her coffee and glanced at her phone. It was only 8:20, so they still had a good ten minutes before the lecture started, so she guessed this was a good time to ask Keith about joining them on their little crusade. Shit, she was too tired for this, “I have a favor to ask,”

Keith’s eyebrows raised, apprehensive of what she was about to ask him to do. Coming from Pidge, he wasn’t sure what she could be trying to get him into, “Yeah?”

She explained the situation to Keith, detailing Lance’s misery and how it was really straining her and even she was a bit bummed about not getting to compete, and she knew Keith was a good gamer. They had hung out a few times here and there when they had time, and Keith had some strengths that none of the others had, which would make him invaluable during team games, “Plus, I know you’ve mentioned joining our club anyway, so are you in?”

Keith hesitated if only for a moment, and shrugged, “Sure, why not,” it sounded harmless enough, and his brother has been on his case about joining clubs anyway, so this was a good start, he thought.

“Great, I’ll break the good news to the other two. I hope you know what you’re getting into with us though, Keith,”

Uh oh.


	2. Player Four Start!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith meets a brown-haired boy in a coffee-shop after his physics exam, only to later find out he’s Pidge’s friend. Lance can’t seem to place why Keith makes him act so weird, but puts that aside for now while the team determines what kind of games Keith is good at and what kind he should never touch again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I’m EXTREMELY sorry for how long this took to get out. I became really busy with college and exams and getting stuff together to apply for a research position and HONESTLY I did not expect this to take over a month to type, I just didn’t have the time. Thanks for being understanding though, and you guys will get a HUGE chapter or a lot of chapters in December, when I’m on break. Way more time to write then.  
> Also, it was my birthday a few days ago! So yay! No longer a teen! The big 20!
> 
> Link to the trio’s room layout: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0Sa9aTRmofMcl9yODhhWnp0czQ
> 
> Link to the gang’s schedules: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1K2hFn0VH3RBf0nejV2uULrZQFJ1Ctcozp-7FmRcF-Is/edit?usp=sharing
> 
> Also, the link to the schedule has their majors if you’re interested in knowing what I have everyone majoring in, and what classes they're taking.
> 
> Enjoy!

_Why is she in a tree in the first place?_ Keith scribbled some notes down next to the diagram given to him on his physics exam. The problem described a girl sitting in a tree, throwing a ball at some upward angle and some initial velocity for her dog to catch at some distance away. It was a several-part problem, but Keith had done plenty of examples similar to this one. He knew that he’d first need to break down the initial velocity into its x and y components, and he would be able to work out the rest of the problem from there.

Keith finished writing down his answer to the first part of the question and rubbed at his eyes, yawning. He hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, studying for this very exam, but clearly it was paying off, so he didn’t mind being a little tired. He had stayed up until about two in the morning, having to wake up at seven so he could go for a short run and get ready in time before his eight-thirty Chemistry class, followed by his nine-thirty physics class which he was currently falling asleep in.

Pidge thinks he’s insane going for a run so early, but it helps Keith wake up, and it gives him a chance to be by himself for a bit. It’s hard to do that while he’s in school because he lives with his brother, everywhere he goes on campus is always crowded with people, and now he’s committed himself to consistently hanging out with a group of people _aside_ from just Pidge. What little free time he had before trying to keep his scholarships has now been whittled-down to his morning run, and he intends to protect that part of his routine.

Finishing up the girl-in-the-tree problem, Keith sped through the others, again recognizing the patterns of the problems and knowing how to solve for the necessary variables. Physics has always come naturally to him, and is probably why he decided to major in aerospace engineering, since it was so physics-heavy and he quite frankly loved the idea of working on planes and spacecrafts. Ever since he was little, he’s always wanted to fly a plane or at least work on them. He had, at one point, momentarily considered joining the air-force, but ever since Shiro lost his arm when he was enlisted, Shiro wasn’t really fond of the idea of Keith enlisting. While he never strictly forbade Keith from joining, Keith knew that it would seriously worry and hurt Shiro to see his brother go through what he did, and potentially experience something even worse.

So, Keith went to college on a full-ride, and found his interest in aerospace engineering.

Keith was one of the first people to leave the room, and had a little too much time before his next class to start heading over now. He decided to walk over to the university’s café and  buy some sort of pick-me-up. He didn’t know what he wanted—coffee, tea, maybe just something sugary—but he would find something to suit his needs.

Weaving through the crowd of people, Keith pulled open the door to the café and was immediately hit with the smell of roasted coffee beans, pumpkin spice, and whatever other fall-themed flavors they were putting in their drinks at this point in the year. It was an inviting scent that wrapped his senses in a warm, fall blanket that was a comfort from the chilly weather outside. He stepped inside, joining the relatively short line. He managed to avoid the late-morning rush, since everyone else was in the middle of a class, so he didn’t have to wait very long to order.

As he scanned over the menu for something relatively simple, he saw just how _complicated_ the menu options were. There were so many different options for some drinks that it seemed like you could take twenty minutes just to order. He decided to skip all the fanfare and just get a simple cup of tea and he’d fix it himself.

After the girl in front of him grabbed her… whatever that chocolatey, whipped-cream covered drink was, he stepped up and ordered his tea. The cashier pushed a few buttons on the register, and Keith pulled out his student ID, knowing that the café accepts Dining Dollars here. The cashier swiped his ID and frowned, “I’m sorry sir, but you don’t have sufficient funds on your card.”

Keith blinked. _What? When did I last put money on here?_ Not saying anything, he took his card back and looked through his wallet, with no more success in finding any sort of money. He looked up at the cashier, embarrassed, “I’m sorry, I don’t-“

“Here, I’ve got it,” A boy behind him spoke up and pulled out his own wallet, handing the cashier enough money to pay for Keith’s drink, “And can you get me a medium caramel macchiato?”

The cashier punched a few more keys and took the money the boy had offered, “Comin’ right up Lance!” He smiled, and turned around to make their drinks.

Keith got a good look at the guy while he put his wallet away. He had messy brown hair and the most gorgeous skin tone Keith’s ever seen. It was as if his olive-brown skin was glowing with a sort of warmth that resonated with the atmosphere of the café. He was about Keith’s height and build, and if anything was slightly taller.

He had put his wallet away by now, and was smiling at Keith, “Hey! What’d you think of the physics exam? Wasn’t too bad, but that girl in the tree thing kinda messed me up,”

Keith paused for a moment, still pretty tired which caused his response to be a bit delayed, especially since he didn’t expect to be having a conversation about the test until he met with Pidge today, “Uh, yeah, it wasn’t bad. I didn’t have any problems with it,”

“I could tell. You were, what, the third person to leave? I wasn’t that far behind, though!” he stated triumphantly, displaying a proud smile. He held out his hand, “The name’s Lance, by the way,”

Keith shook his hand, “I’m Keith,” he said, just now remembering the kindness that Lance showed him, “Oh, uh, thanks for paying for my drink. I don’t have any money on me right now though, so uh...”

“Hey man, don’t worry about it,” Lance said, leaning on the counter with one arm and waving the other hand dismissively at Keith, “I figured you could use it with the way you were yawning, we don’t need you falling asleep in your next class,” he chuckled.

Keith’s face reddened a bit, embarrassed at how obviously tired he was, “Thanks,”

“Of course, man,” Lance continued to smile, but his smile shifted from goofy and proud to friendly and soft. A silence came between the two of them, neither of them having anything more to say. Lance shifted, lower back now resting against the front of the counter, propped the sole of his shoe against it as well, and stuck his hands in the pockets of his opened jacket. He looked out of the large glass windows of the cafe as he waited for their drinks.

Keith pulled out his phone, checking the time. Their drinks should be done soon, but he still felt odd about just taking the drink and leaving. Was this kid even in any of the same classes as he was? Aside from the obvious, of course. Keith pocketed his phone, sticking both his hands in the front pocket of his hoodie and shifting his weight from one leg to the other. He looked to Lance and saw gentle blue eyes raking over the groups of students wandering by the windows of the cafe. Keith wanted to talk to Lance, if just to make this less awkward, but he wasn’t one for small talk— he wasn’t very adept in that area. He hoped Lance would speak back up, but he continued to stare out the window blankly as he seem to zone out.

“Here ya go, Lance! Enjoy!” the young man said, placing the drinks on the counter. Lance spun around, grabbing them both before Keith could even take his hands out of his pocket.

“Thanks, Ben!” Lance said, turning back around with their drinks in hand. He looked to Keith, extending the drink towards him, “and here is your cup of hot leaf-juice,”

Keith shook his head, rolling his eyes a bit, “It’s better than your cup of dirt water,” Keith took his drink from Lance, their hands momentarily touching before the feeling of his hand was replaced by the warmth of the cup.

Lance scoffed, “ _Rude._ By the way, your eye roll is way too similar to another friend of mine’s,” Lance sipped his drink, immediately wincing and retracting his lips from the cup, “Ow, that’s really hot, Jesus,” Lance blew into the small opening on the top of the cup, hoping to cool it down faster. Keith took to waiting for his drink to cool down naturally, especially since the air outside would quickly cool it down on his way to his next class. Before he could speak up and thank Lance again for paying, Lance spoke up again, “So where ya headed?”

“Uh, my next class isn’t until eleven, so I guess the library. You?” Keith asked quietly.

Lance looked at his phone screen, eyes going wide, “Shit! It’s in two minutes! I’m sorry, I’d love to stay and chat, but I’ve gotta bolt. Hasta la later, Keith!” and with that, he was out the door, almost running into a startled girl on his way out. While it may have just been the cold air rushing in from the outside, Keith felt the atmosphere around him lose some of the warmth it just had before Lance left.

\-----

Lance listened as his chemistry professor lectured, gesturing to the equation she just wrote on the board. He wasn’t listening _intently_ , but he did hear what she was saying. Chemistry wasn’t his thing, he was more of a Bio-guy, hence the major in Marine Biology.

Lance had grown up by the shore his entire life and spent whatever time he could in the ocean.  His dad owned a small boat that he would take Lance and some of his siblings out on from time to time, and he eventually taught Lance how to drive it. Lance was allowed to take the boat out on his own when he turned seventeen and got his boating license, although he wasn’t allowed to go far, as per his father’s rules. Lance also had to pay for the fuel and had to clean the boat afterwards, but he didn’t care.

Lance enjoyed being at sea so much that he had eventually saved up enough money to get SCUBA certified and purchase his own gear. The first time he went diving  he swam alongside several schools of fish and even got to touch with a loggerhead sea turtle that seemed to take a liking to him, following Lance around for a while longer as he swam. Lance knew after that he wanted to pursue Marine Biology, which came as no surprise to anybody.

Lance, Pidge, and Hunk all went to the same high school together, and decided to go to college together as well. Honestly, it was more coincidence than anything they all went to Altea University, given their range of majors, but it had some of the top programs _for_ their majors, so it was a nice happenstance. Once they were there, they shared some classes but they all came in with different credits, so Pidge got out of a lot of required classes because she came in with so many. It was after a particularly busy week of cramming for exams and doing insane amounts of homework that the three decided they needed a place where they could just chill together and maybe make a few new friends while they’re at it. The next day, Lance came bounding into their dorm room brandishing a flyer for a video game club.

It was perfect for the three of them, as Pidge and Hunk weren’t really into athletics, Lance wasn’t into all the technology mumbo-jumbo that Pidge and Hunk were into, but one thing the three of them could all do was beat each other to a pulp in a game of Super Smash Bros. The three of them had gone as a team of four with another student, Slav, to the video game tournament the year they joined, the same one that they are going to compete in again this year. They each excelled in different aspects of gaming, making their team pretty formidable, but they didn’t realize how seriously some people took these tournaments and were _severely_ unprepared for the ass-whooping that took place. While they might not have won, they still had a lot of fun together, cheering on the other teams from their club and playing each other in the different games strewn about the tournament.

This year, however, things were different. Slav wasn’t here, they have to bring the new guy up to speed, and this year _they_ were going to be in the spotlight and goddamnit they were gonna win! Lance was determined to make sure that happened.

He twirled a pencil around in his hand, thinking of what Pidge’s buddy was going to be like. What games was he good at? Was he cool like Lance? Was he a big teddy bear like Hunk? Was he a tech-wiz like Pidge? Was he something else entirely? Lance was excited, but he wished he knew more about the guy before he met him. He shrugged to himself, sat up a bit, and stretched his back which was beginning to hurt from sitting in the god-awful plastic chairs they were stuck in. He looked over to Hunk, who was fervently taking notes. Lance decided it was probably about time for him to tune back into the lecture, but while he took notes he couldn’t help but be distracted again by the idea of meeting the new guy.

His mind began to wander from the lecture as he replayed his encounter with Keith this morning over in his head. He knew _of_ Keith, but never had the chance to talk to him. Keith was one of the top students in their physics class, and Lance was constantly competing with him. Well, not _with_ him exactly, more like silently trying to beat Keith’s score, unbeknownst to Keith. Lance hasn’t succeeded yet, but he swears he will one day.

Lance doesn’t know why he’s so fixated on beating Keith specifically, since he’s not even the top scorer in the class. He never really thought about it, but since he started this one-sided rivalry, he’s stuck with it. However, that doesn’t mean he’s going to be a total dick to the guy and watch him get turned away from buying a cup of tea because he didn’t reload his card. He was just trying to get some caffeine in his system and he _clearly_ needed it.

He thought about how Keith looked when Lance paid for his drink. His eyes widened a bit and he was clearly caught off-guard. He looked up at Lance and, for a moment, Lance felt something weird in his chest as Keith’s dark blue eyes met his. He never really identified what that feeling was, but it was weird, and he shrugged it off as he continued their conversation. He had to admit, Keith was kind of cute? He didn’t really meet many cute guys on campus, since their campus was 65% female, which Lance didn’t mind at all since that just meant more cute girls, but a cute guy was just such a rarity that Lance couldn’t believe it. Lance had only really ever seen Keith from opposite sides of a lecture hall, never one-on-one like this to where Lance could see the little details of his face. Usually all Lance saw was his mullet. Why on Earth someone was still trying to rock a mullet, Lance would never know.

Lance knew if he didn’t say something, he’d just be staring at Keith like a creep, so he asked him about the exam, which made for a very, _very_ short conversation. When he mentioned how tired Keith looked, however, he saw how Keith’s face reddened, and Lance got that feeling in his chest again. He felt his face soften, and turned to look literally anywhere else aside from Keith. As cute as Keith was, Lance knew if he didn’t turn away that Keith would see Lance’s face turn a similar shade of red and Lance just couldn’t allow his dignity to crumble like that.

While Lance watched the people outside shuffle along to their classes, Lance kept repeating in his head, _please hurry up please hurry up please hurry up, c’mon Ben, man, I’m dying out here._ As if Ben had actually heard his plea, he appeared with their drinks.

Lance presented Keith with his drink, “and here is your cup of hot leaf-juice,” he smiled, hoping to get a chuckle out of him.

What he didn’t expect was for Keith to come right back at him, sporting an eye-roll that was strikingly similar to Pidge’s, “It’s better than your cup of dirt water,”

As Lance handed him the cup, their hands brushed against one another, and it made the hair on Lance’s neck stand up. _What the actual hell was that?_

Without even thinking about what he was doing, as he was still extremely distracted by what just happened, Lance took a sip of his drink and ended up with one of the nastiest tongue-burns he’s ever had, “Ow, that’s really hot, Jesus,” God, what happened to him? One minute he was having a normal interaction with Keith and the next he’s acting like an idiot. He felt his face heat up a bit, and hoped Keith didn’t see.

They didn’t have much time to talk though, as Lance practically had to run to his next class because he got so distracted by _Keith_.

While Lance was daydreaming, he didn’t realize that Hunk had been trying to talk to him, “-ance? Lance, buddy, you there?” Hunk waved a hand in front of his face, which made Lance snap out of his trance-like state.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah, I’m fine. What’s up?”

“Class is over, it’s time to go get some lunch,”

Lance looked around, and the lecture hall was almost empty at this point. Lance didn’t realize he was so zoned out, and quickly packed up his things before following Hunk out of the hall.

\-----

“Hunk! Not fair!” Lance whined, loudly, shifting his body with the movement of the on-screen go-kart.

“Haha, dude, you were in first, you knew you were gonna get blue-shelled sooner or later! It’s totally fair!” Hunk said through his laughter.

Lance pouted, “Yeah, by an NPC! Not by my best bud!”

Hunk smirked, “It’s every man for himself, Lance!”

The two continued to battle it out in Mario-Kart while they waited for Pidge to get back with their new team member. They decided to hold this meeting in their dorm rather than the club room, since they were just intending to meet the guy and get a feel for what he was good at and what he needed to work on.

Just as Lance was about to catch back up to Hunk and reclaim his first-place position, he heard the electronic door lock disengage and the heavy door swing open. Their school has hotel-style door locks and they just used their student ID’s to get in, which was pretty neat since that mean Lance didn’t have to carry a key that he would probably lose. However, they were loud and acted like a sort of alert when anyone was coming into the room.

Distracted, Lance ran into a banana peel and got passed by two NPC’s, sullenly accepting 4th place, “Damnit! I shoulda had that!” He looked over to hunk, “I blame you,”

Hunk shrugged, “I blame me too… for my awesome victory!” he gently shoved Lance, who shoved him right back, although Lance didn’t really move him much.

Turning around, he saw Pidge coming in with two bags filled with various snacks and drinks, as the group decided to meet on a Wednesday night and none of them had eaten since lunch. As the door begin to close, Lance wondered where her friend was, until he heard a muffled _thunk_ against the door. The door swung back open as the guy pushed it with his foot, “Pidge, what happened to holding the door?”

“Sorry, my hands are full,” She said, not sounding the least bit apologetic as she held up the bags as if they were proof of her innocence.

Lance stiffened when he heard his voice, and he couldn’t believe who was waltzing into his dorm room, three pizzas in hand. It was _Keith._ Coffee shop Keith. Pidge knew him? The same Keith that Lance was competing with for best scores in Physics? The same Keith that Lance bought a cup of tea for out of the blue? Lance’s mind continued to run around this fact and, for the second time today, Hunk waved his hand in front of Lance’s face, “Earth to Lance? You there?”

Lance’s head snapped back to look at Hunk, “Y-yeah man! I’m all good!”

Hunk raised an eyebrow, “You sure? Your face is a bit pink, are you hot?” he pressed the back of his hand to Lance’s forehead to check for a fever, and Lance swatted at his hand.

“I’m _fine_ , Hunk, seriously,” he turned back to look at Keith, who hasn’t noticed him yet. He watched as Keith set the boxes down on Hunk’s desk, as it was closest to the door _and_ the cleanest desk. Lance was a bit embarrassed that he didn’t clean up a bit before their guest arrived, but he also didn’t know it was going to be _Keith_. He didn’t know why he cared so much, but he just chalked it up to their rivalry.

Hunk gave him another weird look before he stood up to go help with the food, leaving Lance on the floor, unsure of what to do with himself. After a bit he got up, smoothing out his jeans, and made his way over to the rest of the group to grab some food. He shook off the weird feeling he was having, and decided to just act like he always did.

“Alright, Pidge! Way to get the _best_ pizza in town!” Lance said, grabbing a plate and following behind Hunk in the little food-line they had going along Hunk’s desk. Lance saw Keith visibly stiffen, and he guessed that Keith recognized Lance’s voice, too.

“You can say it, I’m the best,”

“That’s debateable, you little gremlin,”

She glared Lance, “I can just as easily take the pizza away as I brought it,”

Lance scoffed, “You wouldn’t!”

“Try me, McClain,” she said, picking up the boxes threateningly.

He held up his hands in surrender, “Okay, okay,”

She turned around and grabbed her slices, making her way with Keith to the center of  the room where the four of them would sit and chow-down.

The room was a three-bed dorm, which were scarce on the campus but they managed to snag one of the few that were left when they were accepted.  The room had three of everything: beds, closets, desks, nightstands. The room had a single window on the far wall that overlooked the campus, as they were on the third floor. On the far-right side, there was a door leading to the bathroom.

The trio organized the room so that each bed was in a corner, with Lance and Pidge along the far wall, their beds perpendicular to one another, and with Hunk in the corner nearest the bathroom, parallel to Pidge. At the foot of each bed was their desk and chair and the closets were in less-than ideal places. Lance’s closet ends up behind the front door when it’s fully open, Hunk’s is right next to the front door on the other side of his desk, and Pidge has the most ideal place with hers being just on the other side of her nightstand, nothing to obscure it.

Between Lance’s bed and Pidge’s desk, against the far wall in front of the window, was a television that Pidge had brought from home, along with a few game consoles the three of them brought. They each chipped in and bought bean-bag chairs for when they had game nights, and Hunk brought a micro-fridge, which was a mini-fridge with a microwave on top, so they could store snacks in their room. The fridge was placed next to Lance’s desk and his closet as it was the only available space left, aside from the middle of the room which was completely barren. The trio utilized this space for studying or working on different projects. They considered getting a table but thought it wasn’t worth it since the floor was the biggest table they could ever have.

Once Lance and Hunk had their food and drinks, they helped Pidge move their bean-bag chairs to the center, and dragged a chair over for Keith since they only had three bean bags. Pidge spoke up, “Alright, before we eat, I’d like to introduce you guys to the newest member of team Voltron: Keith! Keith, this is Hunk, and the obnoxious one is Lance,”

Keith and Lance locked eyes, and Lance let out a weak laugh as he scratched the back of his head, “Uh, yeah, Keith and I kind of already know each other,” Pidge gave him a quizzical look, and he really did _not_ want to get into the coffee shop interaction from earlier yet, because he wasn’t even sure what that _was_ , and he didn’t need her overanalyzing anything. He offered up a quick excuse, “We have physics together, so we’ve run into each other on occasion, right Keith?” He looked at Keith and hoped Keith was picking up on his hint to not mention what happened earlier today. Keith looked just as flustered as Lance, almost with a deer-in-headlights look about him. Okay, maybe not as _extreme_ as a deer about to get hit by a car, but there was definitely a hint of surprise embedded in his expression.

“Yeah, we’re in the same class,” Keith said, slowly, as if waiting for Lance’s approval with each word he spoke.

Lance nodded, “Yep, same class,”

Hunk raised an eyebrow, and looked to Pidge as to ask _Why are these two being weird?_

Pidge shrugged and shook her head, giving him a look that said _Don’t look at me, I didn’t know they knew each other._ She cleared her throat, “Alright then weirdos, since you two already know each other, let’s eat!”

The four of them happily feasted upon the pizza and other various snacks, with Lance and Hunk trading stories from their classes that day, with Lance telling Hunk about their physics test, _“I mean, why was she in a tree anyway? You don’t need to be in a tree to throw a ball for your dog!”_ and Pidge poking fun at Lance every now and then _“You’ve got no room to talk, Mr. Watch-Me-Do-A-Backflip-Into-The-Pool, you almost gave yourself a concussion!”_ Keith silently listened to their conversation, which Lance noticed rather quickly. _Was he always this quiet?_ He decided to try and loop Keith into the conversation and help him get comfortable.

“Keith, you’ve gotta back me up on this one, man, there’s _no reason_ she should have been in the tree! She’d have to get down to get the ball back from her dog again anyway!” Lance said, catching Keith a bit off-guard. Keith was watching Lance as he spoke, but now he visibly stiffened and quickly looked at a random patch of carpet that was apparently more interesting than Lance.

He shrugged, “Yeah, I thought the same thing,” he said, mumbling a bit.

Lance pumped a fist in the air, “Woohoo! Take that, Pidgeon!”

Pidge rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, “Yeah, yeah, whatever. I can’t believe you’ve already gotten Keith to turn on me, though; I feel so betrayed,” she turned to Keith, “Don’t team up with Lance, Keith, he’s almost always on the losing team,”

“Hey! Not true!”

Hunk chuckled, “Your racing skills say otherwise, Lance,”

He crossed his arms, pouting, “Pf, whatever,” Hunk patted his back, and Lance pushed him playfully, smiling as Hunk pushed him right back, sending him falling to the floor. The two laughed and Lance sat back up, going for another slice of pizza. As he did, he looked over to Keith, and he saw a small smile had made it’s way onto Keith’s face at some point. _He’s cute when he smiles._

Lance stopped mid-reach for his slice, trying to comprehend how _twice_ in one day Lance managed to think Keith was _cute_. Lance’s face flushed a bit, and he tore his eyes away from Keith, continuing to reach for the pizza. His little pause did not go unnoticed, and neither did the pink tinge that swarmed his features.

“Lance, you okay? You’re acting strange, at least more so than usual,” Pidge said, furrowing her brow slightly in question.

“Yeah, Lance, and now your face is a bit red again, are you sick? If so I do _not_ want your germs, I have an exam coming up and cannot be sick for it,” Hunk said, concerned and clearly meaning that last part as a joke (mostly).

Lance shook his head, “Guys, really, I’m fine! Just got light-headed for a sec!” he said, supplying the same, weak laugh that he did before. He sat back up, and immediately stuffed his mouth with the slice he picked up. Pidge and Hunk shared another look, shrugged, and moved on, though they remained suspicious.

\-----

Once they were finished eating, they moved closer to the television and sat Keith down in the center on one of the bean bags, specifically Lance’s because Pidge told him not to be rude and offer Keith his seat. He scoffed and traded places with Keith, but not after a little protest of _“Then why don’t you give up your seat! He’s your guest!”_ to which Pidge retorted, _“Yeah but your chair is in the center and that’s where he needs to sit, so.”_ Lance now sat between Hunk and Keith, but a bit behind them as there wasn’t enough room to sit four in a row.

Keith settled into the bean bag chair and attempted to get comfortable before Pidge handed him a controller. He turned to look at her, and her glasses glinted against the light of the television, a bit creepily. She was grabbing two additional controllers for her and Lance, deciding that since their Switch was already up and running, they would start with Mario-Kart. “Okay Keith, we’re going to assess your strengths and weaknesses by having you you play a bunch of different games that range in genre, so get ready ‘cause your ass is in it for the long haul,” she said, selecting a map.

Keith’s eyes widened a bit as he looked back at the screen, clearly not realizing the extent of how serious they were about getting a new teammate. Lance smiled a bit, amused at Keith’s surprise, and turned back toward the screen.

After Keith lost horribly at Mario-Kart, the team moved onto one of the many versions of Call of Duty for the Xbox. Keith, again, was not very good and died repeatedly when trying to shoot people in any capacity. He couldn’t shoot close-range or long-distance, but he didn’t go without any kills. However, they were only ever from sneaking up on people and taking them out with his character’s stealth attacks like stabbing or choking.

Deciding Keith was not an FPS person, much to Lance’s relief that Keith would not take his spot as team sharpshooter, they shifted over to the PC. Pidge loaded up Faster Than Light, a strategy game that, initially, Keith was pretty decent at. Leading his team throughout the galaxy, fighting monsters and repairing the ship, it seemed to come naturally to him. After a few stages, however, Keith became too belligerent after getting a few good weapons, and ended up fighting someone way out of his league and losing. Pidge was impressed though, since Keith had never played the game and he made it pretty far.

Pidge figured before they pull out the PS2, she’d eliminate one type of game with a simple question, “Do you have good rhythm?”

“What?” Keith looked over to Pidge like she had sprouted a second head.

“Like, can you dance?”

“ _Pidge._ ”

“Okay, okay, just thought I’d ask.”

After completely ignoring any and all rhythm based games, they looked through Pidge’s library further, and Keith stopped scrolling when he saw a familiar title, “Oh, I have that game too,”

Pidge looked over his shoulder, “Dark Souls?” she asked, as if she didn’t expect it, “Of course you do, load it up,” Keith did as he was told, starting a new game. Dark Souls was a game Pidge didn’t really touch that often, as it was a rough and unforgiving game, and she admittedly didn’t have the patience to get through it, especially since some of the enemy’s attacks seemed so random. She was a strategist, not a sneaky, close-combat person.

For a game meant to be pretty unforgiving and hard, Keith made the game look _easy_. He dodge enemy attacks like they were nothing, and he switched between dodging and attacking so fluidly it was as if he was controlling the character with his mind rather than a few keys on the keyboard. After a solid forty-five minutes of the team being in awe of Keith’s performance, Hunk suggested they move on to the next game in the interest of time.

Keith was put through the ringer with about four more games, and after another amazing performance in Dishonored, a game solely based around stealth, the trio decided they had seen enough to know what Keith was good at and what Keith shouldn’t ever compete in.

The four of them cleaned up the pizza boxes and the cups they left lying on the floor, chatting idly while doing so, and Keith offered to take the trash out on his way back home.

“Oh, Keith, I can take that out in the morning, don’t worry about it man,” Hunk said, as Keith started to pick up the garbage bag they filled.

Keith shrugged, “I pass the dumpster on my way out,” he said, as if it would be wrong of him _not_ to take the trash with him. On his way out, he waved to the three of them, “See you guys,”

Hunk was sitting at his desk and he waved to Keith, “G’night, Keith! Get home safe!” he said with a grin.

He had a small smile on his face, “Thanks,”

Pidge was already back on her bed with her laptop, headphones slung around her neck, “Later, Keith. Don’t forget to send me your chem so we can compare!” Keith nodded to her.

Then he looked to Lance, who was lounging in a bean bag chair, looking right back at Keith. Keith was about to speak up, but Lance beat him to it, “See you in physics, mullet!” he said, saluting keith with two fingers.

Keith mumbled back, “Yeah, see ya,” and he turned and was out the door.

\-----

After disposing of the trash bag, Keith began his trip home. It wasn’t a far walk, and despite it being a bit cold outside, Keith was happy that he got to walk home under the beauty of the night sky. The sun hid everything the night had to offer, such as the wonder of space and the endless possibilities that lie right above their heads.

While enjoying his quiet walk home, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He took it out, seeing a notification from a chat client he used when playing games with Pidge called Chaos.

 _pixel-pidgeotto started group chat: “get in shape, nerds”_   
_Added ArmoredTeddyBear_   
_Added ~FrancotiradorAzul~_ _  
_ Added xXInvisible-BladeXx

**pixel-pidgeotto: alright fuckers, time to get your shit together**

ArmoredTeddyBear: Language, Pidge! 

**pixel-pidgeotto: youre not my dad**

ArmoredTeddyBear: When I’m at college I am, your actual dad told me so. 

**pixel-pidgeotto: damnit**

ArmoredTeddyBear: PIDGE.

**pixel-pidgeotto: :P**

~FrancotiradorAzul~: does that make me your uncle???? :O

**pixel-pidgeotto: oh my god**

**pixel-pidgeotto: why do i hang out with you guys**

~FrancotiradorAzul~: because you love us <3  
****

**pixel-pidgeotto: most days** **  
**

~FrancotiradorAzul~: i’ll take it!  
****

**pixel-pidgeotto: anyway**   
****

**pixel-pidgeotto: keith I know you can see these stop being weird and quiet with your edgy gamertag** **  
**

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: …_ _  
_

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: I just used a generator._ _  
_ ****

**pixel-pidgeotto: and thats what you decided on** **  
** ****

**pixel-pidgeotto: still edgy** **  
** ****

**pixel-pidgeotto: so we need to start actually meeting up and practicing for the tournament** **  
** ****

**pixel-pidgeotto: today was a good start to see where everyone was skill-wise but we need to see how we work together as a team and who is gonna**

**compete in what** **  
**

~FrancotiradorAzul~: i call shooters! :D  
****

**pixel-pidgeotto: yes we know lance**

~FrancotiradoAzul~: :DDD  
****

**pixel-pidgeotto: but we need to decide what everyone else is doing aside from your single round** **  
**

~FrancotiradorAzul~: just figured i’d let Keith know that i am our resident sharpshooter ;D

 _xXInvisible-BladeXx: I don’t even like shooters, you saw how awful I was at them._ _  
_

~FrancotiradorAzul~: WHAT

~FrancotiradorAzul~: WHAT’S NOT TO LIKE

~FrancotiradorAzul~: YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE _GOOD_ TO LIKE THEM   


ArmoredTeddyBear: Lance, buddy, chill. 

~FrancotiradorAzul~: i feel so attacked right now  


ArmoredTeddyBear: We know, Lance.    
****

**pixel-pidgeotto: moving on**   
****

**pixel-pidgeotto: keith, what do you think you are you good at** **  
**

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: I guess I’m good with close combat, stealth, and some strategy?_   
****

**pixel-pidgeotto: correct, edgelord, and what are you bad at** **  
**

_xXInvisible-BladeXx_ : _I’m not very good with shooters, racing games, turn-based games, and rhythm games?_ **_  
_ **

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: Are you going to keep calling me that?_

**pixel-pidgeotto: so long as you have x’s surrounding your name? yep** **  
**

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: …_ _  
_

ArmoredTeddyBear: Aw, come on Pidge, go easy on Keith, he’s new to the group.    
****

**pixel-pidgeotto: new to you two but not to me, hes used to me at this point** **  
**

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: Yeah I kind of am._ _  
_ ****

**pixel-pidgeotto: see? all good** **  
**

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: Also Pidge, why did you ask what I’m good at? We play games together all the time._ _  
_

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: You literally just watched me play about ten different games._ _  
_ ****

**pixel-pidgeotto: do you really think im paying attention to you back in 10th place in mario kart** **  
** ****

**pixel-pidgeotto: because if you do you are sadly mistaken** **  
**

~FrancotiradorAzul~: SAVAGE, Pidge  
****

**pixel-pidgeotto: thank you** **  
** ****

**pixel-pidgeotto: so we all know that im good at strategizing, lance is good with fps games, hunk is a completionist, and keith is a stealthy edgelord** **  
**

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: Why must you be like this?_ _  
_ ****

**pixel-pidgeotto: because im your best friend and its in my contract that i have to torture you daily** **  
**

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: I don’t think it is._ _  
_

~FrancotiradorAzul~: nah I checked, it totally is :P  


ArmoredTeddyBear: She’s right Keith, it’s an unspoken rule among best friends, right Lance? 

~FrancotiradorAzul~: YOU KNOW IT, HUNK! :D

~FrancotiradorAzul~: but that pretty much gives each of us a type of game that we can conquer then??? so we don’t have to decide who gets to compete in

what game cuz none of our categories really overlap?  
****

**pixel-pidgeotto: yep its extremely convenient so thank you keith for you dark and brooding nature**

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: I’m going to mute the chat._ _  
_

~FrancotiradorAzul~: KEITH NO D: _  
_ ****

**pixel-pidgeotto: keith i know where you live you cant hide forever** **  
** ****

**pixel-pidgeotto: ill tell your brother youre isolating yourself from your friends** **  
**

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: Pidge, what the fuck?_ _  
_ ****

**pixel-pidgeotto: checkmate, edgemaster**

~FrancotiradorAzul~: Keith why do you hate us ;-;

 _xXInvisible-BladeXx: I don’t hate you?_ _  
_

~FrancotiradorAzul~: <3  
****

**pixel-pidgeotto: guys, we need to decide when to meet to see how we work as a team** **  
** ****

**pixel-pidgeotto: also, if we think we actually have a chance in this tournament, then we need to start thinking about finding two other people to join** **this clusterfuck to compete in the finals with** **  
**

ArmoredTeddyBear: Pidge just because you put it at the end of a word doesn’t mean I didn’t catch it.  **  
**

~FrancotiradorAzul~: i know two people but they’re in eUROPE  
****

**pixel-pidgeotto: youre never gonna let that go are you** **  
**

~FrancotiradorAzul~: i was BETRAYED, Pidge! BETRAYED!!! </3

 _xXInvisible-BladeXx: I think I might know two people?_ _  
_ ****

**pixel-pidgeotto: keith you actually know people besides me and your brother?** **  
**

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: ...He’s one of the two people._ _  
_ ****

**pixel-pidgeotto: oh my gosh** **  
** ****

**pixel-pidgeotto: anyway well see if we need him and mystery person #2 or not later, right now we have to see if we can even make it past the qualifying** **round** **  
** ****

**pixel-pidgeotto: i need you all to send me your schedules and ill find a time that works for us all** **  
**

_ArmoredTeddyBear sent a file._ _[Downloaded]_ _  
_

_xXInvisible-BladeXx sent a file. [Downloaded]_ _  
_ ****

**pixel-pidgeotto: …** **  
** ****

**pixel-pidgeotto: …...** _  
_ ****

**pixel-pidgeotto: lance sometime this century would be good**

~FrancotiradorAzul~: i’m wORKING ON IT

~FrancotiradorAzul~: YOU’RE IN THE SAME ROOM AS ME YOU CAN SEE MY TYPING

 _~FrancotiradorAzul~ sent a file. [Downloaded]_ _  
_ ****

**pixel-pidgeotto: okay great ill work on this tonight and let you guys know tomorrow when were gonna start having regular meetings** **  
** ****

**pixel-pidgeotto: see you nerds later**

_pixel-pidgeotto is Offline._

ArmoredTeddyBear: Goodnight, guys! It was night meeting you today, Keith! 

_ArmoredTeddyBear is Offline._

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: You too._ _  
_

~FrancotiradorAzul~: hey Keith?

 _xXInvisible-BladeXx: Yeah, Lance?_ _  
_

~FrancotiradorAzul~: i’m lookin forward to kickin some virtual butt with you, welcome to team Voltron! :)

 _xXInvisible-BladeXx: Uh, yeah, I’m looking forward to it._ _  
_

~FrancotiradorAzul~: night, Keith!

_~FrancotiradorAzul~ is Offline._

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: Night._

_xXInvisible-BladeXx is Offline._

\-----

Keith shut the front door behind him, allowing the cold from outside to vanish and the warmth of his and Shiro’s apartment to envelop him. He locked the door, and began to take off his jacket. He carried it over his arm and moved further into the apartment, seeing if Shiro was around but not looking for him in particular. It was about 8:00pm now, so Shiro would probably be in the living room watching TV or reading.

As Keith stepped through the threshold of the living room, he saw that Shiro really never did deviate from his schedule, because Keith could always predicts where he was going to be. As he thought, Shiro was lounged on the couch, feet propped up on the coffee table, and a book in hand.

He looked up as Keith entered, taking off his glasses, “Hey Keith, how was your day? Did your test go well?”

Keith took his backpack off, resting it against the side of the couch, and he set down next to Shiro, “Yeah, it was good. The test was easy, I left pretty early and got some tea before my next class,”

“I was worried this morning when I saw you leave, you looked really tired, you probably needed the tea,”

Keith shrugged, “Yeah I—” Keith paused, “Oh, I need to put more money on my card, I forgot,” he said, pulling his laptop out of his bag.

“Did you have enough for your tea at least?”

Keith paused momentarily as he typed in his password to log in to the student ID card system, a bit embarrassed about his interaction with Lance earlier today, “N-no I didn’t,” he said, wanting to leave it at that but knew that wasn’t going to be enough for Shiro.

“And how did you pay for your tea then?”

“A friend got it for me,”

“Pidge?”

Keith wanted to lie, so badly, to just say yes and let it die at that, but it was _Shiro_. Keith had never lied to Shiro, and he wasn’t about to start lying to him because of a little embarrassment, “No, it was a uh, new friend,” Keith said as clicked through the options on the screen.

“Oh?” Shiro said, turning his body more towards Keith, in a gesture meant to say _t_ _ell me more_ , which Keith did not want to do. He didn’t know why he was so embarrassed about it, especially since Lance was kind of his friend now? They were more so acquaintances via Pidge, but still. Keith admitted, Lance’s gesture made Keith feel… odd. He didn’t feel embarrassment in the moment, he thinks, but he couldn’t place what feeling it was; it was foreign to him.

Keith sighed quietly, continuing, “Yeah, it’s this kid in my physics class. I guess he left soon after me and had the same idea, and he overheard my issue and just paid for my drink without asking,” Keith closed his laptop, “We talked for a bit, and when I went to hang out with Pidge I found out he was one of her friends. So yeah,” Keith looked over to Shiro, and saw he had a smile on his face, a devious one. Well, Keith couldn’t really call it devious, since it was physically impossible for Shiro to be devious, but it was something… playful? He settled on playful.

“Was he cute?” he teased.

Keith’s eyes widened, his face reddened, and he gaped at Shiro, “Shiro! It’s not like that!”

Shiro bellowed, “Hahaha, Keith, it’s okay, I’m just kidding!” Keith had already picked up one of the couch pillows and was mercilessly trying to beat Shiro with it. Shiro continued to laugh, grabbing the other pillow, “Hey hey hey! Do you want a repeat of last time?”

It was Keith’s turn to smile deviously, “Bring it, Shirogane,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo! 7.6K words! I wanted to hit 10K in one chapter but felt that was a good stopping point for this one, so maybe the next one? Who knows! I like longer chapters because I feel that I can get more story and development in that way rather than split it up into two shorter ones.
> 
> By the way, Lance's gamertag/username translates to Blue Sniper (Or sharpshooter, approximately, because tirador de primera is really long for a gamertag).
> 
> I hope you guys liked it! Please leave kudos if you did, I appreciate it and it brightens my day <3
> 
> Also! If you see typos or formatting issues or anything please feel free to point them out! I won't get upset and I super appreciate you guys pointing them out!
> 
> Thanks guys! <3


	3. Wasn't Expecting That

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance begins to hang out more with Keith during class, and they hit up the cafe again. Lance slowly begins to realize what kind of situation he's in, even if he's still in denial about it. Keith comes to terms with his own feelings... mostly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BAM! THANKSGIVING BREAK CHAPTER!
> 
> Hey guys! I had started this chapter about two weeks ago, and then had some rough work and tests before I went on break, so I wrote most of this in one day. I had planned for there to be more content this chapter, but I've decided to put it in a separate chapter instead (the next one, so you won't have to wait too terribly long).
> 
> I probably will not be able to write much until next month after my finals, but if I have time I will try to get another chapter out before then. 
> 
> Also, while writing most of this chapter I was listening to "Wasn't Expecting That" by Jamie Lawson if any of you like to know what mood I was in while writing. Also "Absolutely Smitten" by dodie. They're cute little songs.
> 
> By the by, if you want to follow me on tumblr I'm your-local-cactus-goddess
> 
> Remember, links to the gang's schedules and room arrangement can be found in the previous chapter's notes.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> EDIT: I hope you guys know that while I sit and do my homework, I refresh the page every once in a while because I love seeing the hits counter go up its so motivating (and I get twice as excited when the kudos go up as well its a fantastic feeling knowing you guys like this :D)

 

It was Thursday morning now, and Lance’s walk to class was a bit more upbeat than usual. After their practice last Wednesday, Lance was even  _ more _ pumped about the competition than before. All his worries about having to “bring the new guy up to speed” because they didn’t have Slav anymore were thrown out the window. Who needed Slav? They’ve got Keith now! And with Keith on their team, they were gonna blow the competition out of the water. 

Of course, he had only seen Keith play by himself, not as a part of their team, so he had no idea how well Keith would cooperate with the rest of them. Still, Keith was  _ good _ , and that’s all that Lance cared about right now. They actually stood a chance this year, and he couldn’t be more excited.

As Lance pushed open the door to his Calculus 3 class, he saw Keith and his familiar mop of hair sitting in a desk against the wall. Lance had noticed Keith in his class, but didn’t normally sit next to him. While everybody pretty much had their usual seat, and at some point it’s almost as if it’s an  _ assigned _ seat, Lance decided there was no harm in sitting next to Keith. Lance waltzed over to the empty desk and plopped down, offering a bright smile to Keith and a cheery, “Mornin, Mullet!”

Keith hadn’t seen Lance enter the room, as he was preoccupied with something on his phone, and had jumped a bit at Lance’s sudden appearance. Nonetheless, he offered a quiet “Good morning, Lance,” in return. 

Lance looked him over quickly. He wore a beanie that seemed to loosely sit on his head, held on solely by the amount of hair the boy had. He also sported fingerless gloves, which Lance couldn’t help but smile at, since, honestly, he should’ve expected something like this from someone like Keith.

His eyes roamed to the rest of his outfit, seeing that Keith was wearing a dark, navy hoodie, a dark red shirt, and black skinny jeans. Lance lingered on the fact that Keith was wearing skinny jeans longer than he probably should have, because  _ damn _ the boy had nice legs, before snapping himself out of it before he looked like a creep.

Lance began to unpack his bag, trying to not think about how he was just admiring Keith’s incredible legs.  _ Wait, no, shit. They’re just legs. Stop thinking about them, jesus Lance.  _ Lance wanted to keep chatting with Keith. However, Keith didn’t seem to be much of a chatterbox, so Lance was going to have to do most of the leg work here. But even he was a bit unsure of what to say, “So you got home safe last night? Didn’t get mugged or anything?”

Keith raised an eyebrow, “Uh, yeah, I mean I’m here so,” he said, as if it was pretty obvious. Which it was. Lance mentally slapped himself for that. Since when was he this awkward? He was Mr. Smooth, Mr. Lady-Killer.

“Oh, haha, yeah I guess so,” He said, scratching the back of his neck.  _ Wow, Lance, way to go. Of course he got home same, wherever that is _ . That gave Lance an idea for something they could talk about, because he didn’t actually know where Keith went “home” to, “Hey, what dorm do you live in by the way?” 

Keith shifted, “I don’t live in the dorms, I live with my brother,”

“You have a brother?”

Keith nodded, “Yeah, well, adoptive brother. His parents adopted me when I was young, so he’s been with me for most of my life,”

Lance didn’t know Keith was adopted, but decided that it was best not to press the issue, especially not five minutes before their calc class was due to start, “That’s cool, so you guys are pretty close, huh? Does he go to school here?”

“Yeah, he’s going for his Master’s now,”

“Cool, cool,” A lapse in conversation resulted, since Keith wasn’t exactly giving Lance much to work with. At that moment, the professor came in with a stack of paper, most likely their quizzes from the last class. Lance and Keith would have to continue their  _ thrilling _ conversation later.

——-

Lance doesn’t know how he didn’t notice Keith before in his chemistry lab, but as he made his way to his lab room, he noticed that he was following the same path as Keith. They entered the lab, putting their backpacks on the hooks along the wall, and went to completely opposite ends of the lab.  _ Oh, that’s why. _

Hunk and Pidge were already at their lab stations, goggles and aprons donned, and ready to go for lab. Pidge hadn’t let Lance’s arrival with Keith go unnoticed, “Do you two have the same class before this or are you just stalking him now?”

“First off, yes, we  _ do _ have the same class, but secondly,  _ why _ would I  _ ever _ stalk Keith if we didn’t?”

“Because you’re a weirdo like that,”

“ _ Rude,” _

She chuckled, and Hunk spoke up “But no, really, you two never used to arrive at the same time, so why now?”

Lance shrugged, “I sat next to him in class today, so we sorta left at the same time. I mean, if we’re gonna be a team, I might as well get friendly with the guy,” Lance said, as if it was obvious. Pidge and Hunk exchanged a look like they had back at their dorm last night, this time with Pidge rolling her eyes and Hunk chuckling, and Lance still didn’t know why they were looking at each other like that. Slowly, he turned and asked, “What’s so funny?”

Pidge raised her hands defensively, “Nothing! Nothing,”

Lance shot a disbelieving look to the both of them, but turned back to his lab bench and unlocked his drawer to get his apron and goggles, “Oooo-kay then,”

Once lab started, he and Hunk paired up to complete the experiment, and Pidge was stuck with a kid that barely knew what a beaker was. The experiment was going pretty smoothly, and Lance glanced over the top of their lab bench to see how Keith was doing. He couldn’t see much, it was more so just Lance watching Keith move back and forth between his and his partner’s work station. Lance chuckled at the way the goggles made Keith’s hair freak out a bit, with the usual poofy-ness of it now flattened by the goggle strap, and his bangs sticking out every which way on top of them.

“Lance! The flask!” Hunk had gently pushed Lance over, grabbing the Erlenmeyer flask off of the hot-plate, as it had started to boil, which was exactly what it was supposed to  _ not _ do.

Lance snapped back to reality, and slumped his shoulder, “Oh crap, Hunk, I’m sorry,” he said, already in the process of remaking the solution and reheating it.

“It’s alright, dude, you just gotta focus ‘cause we can’t redo that part again, we don’t have the time,” he said as he continued to work on his part.

Lance nodded, and kept his head down the rest of lab as to avoid his previous distraction.

Once he and Hunk turned in their report sheet for the lab, Lance looked around for Keith again. However, he was nowhere in sight.

_ He must’ve finished early, no surprise there. Damn, I kinda wanted to see him again. Ugh, why do I wanna see him so badly? It’s not like he's a great conversationalist, and it's hard to keep up with him when he walks, especially with legs like those.  _ Lance took a minute to think about what he just thought, flushing a bit. _ God, those legs are distracting. Shit, Lance, stop thinking about them! Why are you thinking about them! Sure, Keith is… attractive but you don’t think of him like that. He’s just a friend. A bro. A pal. Yeah, that's all. You just wish you had legs like that, that's all. _

Lance went off to his next class, having made himself feel a little less weird about his new friend.

——-

The rest of the week went on pretty uneventfully, and Wednesday came back around in no time at all. Lance and Keith were sitting in their physics class, Lance now taking up a seat next to Keith, and the professor had yet to show up. Lance was playing a game on his phone to pass the time, and Keith seemed to be scrolling through emails, from what Lance could see. As Lance sent out more cat warriors to fight off incoming enemies, Keith refreshed his email. Suddenly, his phone vibrated, and Keith immediately opened the new email that had appeared. It was from their physics professor, and Lance read over Keith’s shoulder:

_ Dear class, _

_ I unfortunately could not find a parking space at this godforsaken university, so class is cancelled for today. If you guys orchestrated this, then well done. _

 

  * __Dr. Jones__



Lance pumped a fist in the air, “Yes! Morning off!” Lance shoved his notebook and pencils back in his backpack, and slung it over his shoulder in one swift movement. Keith had followed suit, and the two left the room along with the rest of the class. They headed outside, in no particular direction. Lance shoved his hands in his pockets to protect them from the cold, and looked over to Keith, “So, what do you wanna do? We’ve got some time to kill, wanna grab a coffee?”

Keith scrunched his nose, “Coffee? Nah, I’m good,” Lance’s jaw dropped, offended beyond belief that Keith supposedly didn’t want to hang out, but then Keith added, “But I’ll take a cup of tea, though,” he chuckled. Lance lightly shoved him, chuckling a bit.

Lance had found out a few things about Keith during the time they spent together: Keith was a bit reserved around people he wasn’t used to. Lance wasn’t sure why, whether it was that Keith didn’t like people, that he didn’t trust people, or something else entirely. But after a little conversation, Keith seemed like an entirely different person than Lance had previously known. The quiet and shy kid hiding behind his bangs would suddenly perk up a bit, eyes shining and a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. If Lance brought up something Keith liked to talk about, Keith almost seemed to babble like Lance did. He was less verbose and excitable than Lance, but he got excited in his own, Keith-like way. When Keith listened to people, he would have his arms crossed over his chest or resting on a table, holding his elbows. Once you got him talking, he moved his hands in gesture constantly, and his facial expressions were unexpectedly… expressive. Keith used to always seem to carry a poker face, playing at “I’m cool and brooding,” or something, or so Lance had thought. Keith didn’t really raise his voice when he got excited, so  _ occasionally _ it was hard to tell when Keith was actually excited, but Lance learned Keith’s mannerisms pretty quickly.

But cool and brooding wasn’t Keith, Lance found out. Keith was a huge and total dork, and in the best way. Keith had passions and got excited over some things, and overly embarrassed about others. Lance would bring up Shiro and Keith would recount stories of his brother doing something embarrassing, and Keith would get a huge smile on his face. Lance would bring up space, and Keith would talk about the new exoplanet that was recently discovered, describing to Lance in relatively impressive detail the report of the planet, and the possibility of life on some of the planets. Lance was finding out so much about Keith, and he was really enjoying it. He liked the Keith he was coming to know, the Keith that only he, Pidge, and Hunk got to see.

Of course, it went both ways, as when Keith would ask Lance about different things, Lance couldn’t really figure out when to shut up. Lance had the horrible tendency to be too open to new people, and he’d often dump a lot of information about himself on them at once. He always tried really hard not to over-do it, but alas, it is his curse to babble for eternity. Keith didn’t seem to mind, though, as he watched as Lance moved his entire body with his stories of home and the ocean and his different interests. Keith would watch, arms crossed, with a small smile on his face. His eyes wouldn’t leave Lance, which Lance took as a good sign since he wasn’t looking away disinterestedly. 

Of course, not all of their conversations were this energetic. Lance even had his limits on energy, especially in the morning. He liked their quiet morning talks, where Keith would make a comment on how stupid something on the homework was, or how someone in front of him was walking too slowly and he couldn’t go around him. These stories were more subdued, but gave Lance more insight into how Keith thought and who he was as a person. Lance wasn’t really sure when he made the transition from “stranger” to “friend” in Keith’s brain, but he wasn’t going to fuss over it. Maybe he just gave off a vibe of “talk to me, I’m a great listener.”

But the fact that Keith just kind of made a joke to Lance? Now that was revolutionary. Keith didn’t seem to understand much of Lance’s humor, or anyone else’s for that matter. Lance thought the poor boy was incapable of appreciating comedy at all, but this was a sign that there was hope for the previously humorless Keith. 

Lance opened the door to the cafe, holding it open for Keith. Keith walked through quickly, and the cold followed him in, making Lance shiver. He quickly shut the door, even though it closed on its own. It was too cold out for the beginning of October. Between the wind chill and the seemingly endless cloud cover they’ve had, the cold seemed to settle in permanently and only got worse. 

Lance was wearing earmuffs at this point, along with a bright blue scarf his sister had knit him. It stood out against his navy blue coat and denim jeans, but he loved it so much he didn’t really care. His little sister made it for him and sent it to him while he was away at college, so of course he was gonna wear it.

Keith was wearing his normal, dark-grey knitted beanie, along with a red scarf and a pair of fingerless gloves. He was wearing the same dark-navy blue jacket he always wore, which made Lance believe it was the  _ only _ jacket or coat he owned. Lance liked it though, because it looked good on Keith— it was his style.

The cafe was relatively empty, but a line was starting to form at the register regardless, “Hey, Keith, wanna go grab a table and I’ll get our drinks? The same as last time, right?” Lance looked to Keith, who simply nodded and walked off toward the tables. Lance saw a tinge of pink cross his cheeks, but he figured it was just Keith’s face reacting to being in a warmer environment than outside or...whatever. 

Once Lance had their drinks in hand, he found Keith sitting on the far side of the cafe, in the corner. There were plenty of tables around, so Lance didn’t see why Keith had chosen this specific table, but he rolled with it, “Jeez, Keith, I think I burnt off all of the calories from this coffee on the walk over to the table,” Keith rolled his eyes, “Why’d you pick this table anyway?”

Keith took his tea from Lance, and took the lid off, allowing it to cool faster. He looked up, seemingly a bit embarrassed, “Oh, uh, my brother’s in the military? I’ve mentioned that right?” he took some sugar packets from the table, pouring them in, “Well, when he and I go out, he always chooses his seat ‘strategically’, he says, so he can see his entire environment,” Lance was a bit confused, and he guessed Keith saw his confusion because he continued as he pointed to the register, “Not only can I see everything going on at the register, but I can see the entirety of the other side of the cafe, out the window, and the side door of the cafe,”

“So why the corner?”

“No one can sneak up on me here,”

Lance laughed at that, causing Keith to flush a brighter shade of red, “Keith, bro, I don’t think anyone is planning on  _ attacking _ you at a cafe,”

Keith smiled, shrugging as he stirred his tea, “You never know. But I honestly just picked this habit up from my brother when he would tell me to pick a table or a seat,”

It was Lance’s turn to flush, because  _ that is the cutest damn thing _ , “Oh, okay, that’s cool. You must be really close with him, you always have a story or two about him,”

Keith smiled, “Yeah, we are,” a look of fondness crossing over him. 

Lance sipped his drink as they fell into a comfortable silence, with Lance looking out the window  next to him.  _ This is… really nice.  _

He and Keith sat there for a while, with Lance occasionally pointing out people he knew or commenting on someone’s outfit, and Keith listening and occasionally throwing in his own snarky comment. He rested his head on his chin, other hand wrapped around his cup. Both of Lance’s, when not pointing, where gripping the wonderfully warm cup as if it was the last heat source on Earth. His hands were still pretty cold, but he didn’t care, because he was having a good time with Keith and didn’t want this to end.

Lance was done looking out the window, and took to looking at Keith instead. He examined Keith, and the way his hair curled around and poked out from his beanie, how dark his eyes were as the shaped and images of the outside gleamed over them, and how soft his skin looked. He looked at the fingerless gloves Keith was wearing, and saw the nice leather material they were made from. It looked ridiculously soft and smooth, but Lance couldn’t place why anyone would wear  _ fingerless  _ gloves on a day as cold as this, but again, it was just Keith’s style as Lance had come to learn. 

_ I wonder what those gloves feel like… _

Without thinking about what he was doing, Lance’s had started to reach for Keith’s hand, until he was brought back to reality when his phone alarm went off. He flushed, realizing what he was about to do, and hurriedly took his phone out of his pocket to silence it.

Lance checked the time. 10:20. He was  _ extremely _ glad it just prevented him from doing what he was about to do, but he conjured up a fake groan as he stood, “Ugh, I gotta get goin’, I have my chem lecture next,” he stuffed his phone back in his pocket and shrugged his jacket back on. He picked up his coffee, looking to Keith, “See you tonight?”

“Yeah, I’ll see you,”

Lance smiled as he turned, his insides feeling all light and fluttery. He also felt extremely embarrassed even though he knew Keith didn’t see him  _ reach for his god damn hand _ . 

_ What are you doing, Lance? Are you some sort of love-sick highschooler making a move on the hot emo-lookin’ guy?  _ As Lance thought of what just happened, he felt his chest flutter and his face flush.  _ No no no, you do  _ **_not_ ** _ have a crush on this guy, McClain, you do not have… a… crush…  _

_ Nope, no crush… but I’ve gotta clean my room this time. _

——-

After his Ecology and Evolution lab, Lance rushed back to his dorm to start picking up some of the stuff he’s left around their room. Keith already knows what Lance’s area of the room looks like from the last time he was here, but that didn’t mean that Lance wouldn’t try and clean up a little. He could pick up his clothes that he left piled on his desk chair and on the surrounding floor, throw out some of the fast-food wrappers on his end table, and actually make his bed. At home, he always had to keep a clean room, but since his mother wasn’t here with him and he was super busy with classes, he didn’t really have the time to clean up, or so he told himself.

Lance felt Hunk glance over at him every now and then, and Pidge was flat out staring at him, her gaze like a lead weight on his back. After a while of being stared at, Lance threw down the shirt he was folding, turning to Pidge, “Okay, while I usually love being the center of your guys’ attention, why am I so captivating right now?”

Pidge had her arms crossed, and she squinted at Lance, as if analyzing him, “You’re cleaning,”

“Yeah, so?”

“You haven’t cleaned your side of the room  _ once _ this year,”

Lance shrugged, “It needed to be cleaned,”

Pidge sighed, “It needed to be cleaned several  _ weeks  _ ago, Lance, something’s up with you,”

Lance stiffened, and he felt his heart beat a little faster. Pidge was pretty intimidating when she wanted to know something because she will stop at nothing to find it out. And he wasn’t sure that he  _ wanted _ her to find out that he was doing all of this because of Keith. Not to mention, Lance only recently found out that he  _ potentially _ has a crush on the guy, and hadn’t really decided yet on whether or not that was true yet. But Lance had to admit, he really liked hanging out with Keith, so maybe he wanted to make a better impression on the guy this time.

Lance rolled his eyes, “Nothing is up, Pidge, I’m just cleaning!” and even if it was because Keith was coming over and Lance didn’t want to look like a complete and total slob, it wasn’t her business.

She shook her head, “Nope, not buying it. Hunk?”

“Yeah dude, sorry, but you honestly have never cleaned this thoroughly. You never even cleaned your room back  _ home _ this well, and I know that because I’ve helped you clean several times and half the time you usually just throw everything in your closet. You’re actually putting things  _ away  _ this time,” he said, turning around in his chair to face the other two.

Lance scoffed, “Hunk!”

“What? It’s the truth! You’re acting weird, Lance, we just wanna know why,”

Lance laughed nervously, “You two— you two are rich. You’re  _ so bored _ that me cleaning my room is the most  _ amazing thing _ happening right now. It’s alright, you can admit it, I’m very entertaining,” he went back to folding the shirt he was holding, neatly adding it to the growing pile of long-overdue laundry, but not without a little pizzaz to mock the other two.

Pidge groaned, “Lance, c’mon, we’re your best friends, just tell us what’s bugging you! Only Hunk obsessively cleans when he’s nervous!” she was getting frustrated, as she waved her hands all over the place when she talked.

“Maybe I’ve just picked a good habit up from a dear friend,” he said, shrugging and picking up another shirt.

“ _ Lance, _ ”

Lance needed to come up with something, because he knew that she was never going to leave him alone at this rate. He wasn’t about to give her the full-blown truth of ‘ _ yeah, I’m cleaning my room because of your hot friend whom I most certainly do not have a crush on and I want to make a better impression than the first time he was over,’ _ so he came up with a half-assed excuse, “Oh my god, Pidge, I am just cleaning so we have places to sit tonight for our group meeting, my shit’s all over the place, more so than last time, so I’m just trying to clean a little here, okay?” Usually she wouldn’t fight back after someone got frustrated, because she did have a heart somewhere in that little gremlin body of hers, and she knew when enough was enough.

Luckily, she stuck true to her habits, “Alright, alright, yeesh. Don’t go getting your panties in a twist. It’s nice to see you cleaning though, keep it up,” she said, going back to whatever she was doing on her laptop.

_ Oh thank god _ , Lance thought, as he went back to folding the last of his laundry.

——-

There was a knock on the door at around 4:30, and Hunk got up to answer it. Lance had laid down on his bed, relaxing, after cleaning his room for a little over an hour, and had no intention of getting up until he absolutely had to. Pidge was still typing away on her laptop, hyper-focussed, so  _ she _ wasn’t going to get up and answer the door. Besides, Hunk was sat closest to the door, and he wasn’t doing anything, so Lance didn’t feel bad about not getting up. 

“Oh, hey Keith! Come on in!” Hunk said, stepping aside to let Keith in the room.

Lance sat up quickly, “H-hi Keith!” He said, mentally slapping himself for stuttering.

Keith smiled, “Hey, Hunk, Lance,” he walked further into the room, but then kinda stood there, unsure of where to go.

Pidge spoke up, “You can sit at my desk, Keith, I usually sit on my bed anyway,”

He nodded, walking over to her desk. He sat down and took out his laptop, starting it up. 

Lance hopped off his bed, stretching. He wandered over to his desk and started up his own laptop, now actually having room on his desk to do so. Keith hadn’t said a word about his side of the room yet which disappointed Lance. He worked so hard on it, and maybe just wanted a little recognition for it, “So, Keith, notice anything different?”

Keith looked over, eyeing Lance’s area, “You uh… got a new chair?”

Pidge barked out a laugh, “HA!”

Lance pouted, “Oh shut up, and  _ no _ , I did not get a new chair, I’ve always had this chair!”

Keith raised a brow, “Where was it last time?”

Pidge snorted.

“It was right here! It hasn’t moved!”

Hunk was chuckling at this point, “Yeah but the pile of clothes that was on top of it disappeared,”

“Oh, I remember the pile of clothes. The chair was in there?” Keith asked, genuinely curious.

Pidge couldn’t contain herself, holding her stomach while laughing, “Oh man, this is incredible!”

Lance groaned, “You guys are awful,” he slumped in his chair, turning back toward his laptop. So much for making a better impression on Keith, it seemed like he didn’t even realize at all that Lance cleaned his room  _ specifically for him _ . Lance sighed, opening up the game Hunk had them download.

This time they were going to focus on team games to see how well they work together. Hunk had suggested that they play a game where it only involved the four of them, rather than face off against random people online, since it was easier to communicate that way. The others were in agreement, and Hunk told everyone to load up a game he had them download earlier in the week: Overcooked. 

Overcooked was a game where you had to prepare different meals by bringing foods to cutting boards, pans, and the like. Then you’d combine ingredients and let them cook, then put them on a plate and bring them to the kitchen window to be served. It’s like a restaurant, except twenty times as more hectic and ridiculous since each of the “restaurant” settings were in places like on an iceberg, in a factory with a conveyor belt to transport food, or on two moving trucks that come together and split apart. It was pretty insane, but fun, and it was good for team building.

Hunk had played the game a little before, so he took the lead in this game, “Alright everybody, so the easiest way to play this game is for each of us to have an assigned job and to stick with it. Usually, there’s a person to grab the ingredients, a person to chop or hammer, a person who cooks, and a person who runs the food and does the dishes. Since running and doing the dishes is, oddly enough, the most complicated job, I’ll handle that part. So the rest of you can decide who is best at what, and we can keep switching until we figure it out, and we’ll work on our communication at the same time. Sound good?”

The three of them nodded, each selecting a character and starting the game. They of course had to go through the tutorial first. The tutorial had a kitchen that was split in two by a counter. On one side, Hunk and Lance had a box of cabbage and a box of tomatoes, along with plates. On the other side, Keith and Pidge only had cutting boards. A countdown started, and they were off.

Hunk immediately starting barking out commands, “Lance! You bring over the tomatoes, I’ll handle the lettuce! Keith! You chop tomatoes! Pidge! Lettuce!”

Everyone worked quickly, and Hunk continued to lead them through, “Keith! Bring the tomatoes over to the counter and grab an unchopped one! Pidge, you too!” he shouted, combining the tomatoes and lettuce on the plate and bringing it over to the giant meatball monster that was demanding the food. 

They were working really well together, but the tutorial is one of those doomed-from-the-start sorta things where you are setup to fail no matter what, because story. After they failed, Hunk let out a “Whoo! That was awesome!”

Keith turned around, “What do you mean? We failed,”

“Yeah, but that’s supposed to happen, ya know? Story and all,” he said, shrugging.

They continued on to the next level, which consisted of a different mechanism: actually cooking something. They were just making soup with one ingredient, but it still added a level of sophistication because you could burn the soup if you didn’t pay attention. The dish-washing mechanism was also thrown in, so Hunk would handle food delivery and cleaning. Lance decided to stick with running the ingredients, since that’s what he was used to. Pidge decided to chop up the ingredients, which left Keith with cooking.

The round started, and the group was set in motion. Lance brought the onion over to the counter between him and Pidge, who then took the onion and chopped away. Keith was already next to Pidge, ready to grab the onion. He brought it back over to the pot, and it began cooking. They continued this cycle, and Hunk brought a bowl over for Keith. However, after putting in the third onion, Keith wasn’t paying attention to the soup and was, rather, waiting for the next onion from Pidge, not realizing that the soup was done.

Hunk was busy grabbing another dish, and he noticed what was happening a second too late, “Keith! The soup!”

Keith ran his character back over, having to throw out the burnt soup and start over. Unfortunately, that meant that they lost out on that order, which hurt their score. This happened a few more times, Keith getting a bit too flustered after a while to concentrate, so they took a break to eat their food, which Hunk had so graciously fetched before they started the game.

After swallowing a mouth full of rice, Hunk turned to Keith, “You know, maybe you a Pidge should switch places, you might be better at that,”

Lance looked over at Keith and he was… pouting? Glaring? A combination of both? Whatever he was doing, it was  _ adorable _ and Lance felt his face heat up. He looked away as Keith quietly responded, “Okay,”

Once they were done eating, they got back into it. With their new configuration, they were doing much better than last time. Pidge was much better at keeping an eye on the soup than Keith was, and they completed the level with a three-star rating, the highest they could get. 

Hunk smiled, “Alright, we’re getting there! I think this will work out!”

About seven more stages later, after having to deal with an ice stage, as well as a confusing conveyor belt stage with a literal flame thrower, as well as the moving truck stage, they took another break. They didn’t do as well on the conveyor belt stage, because Lance kept sending food the wrong way, and Keith kept falling on the ice stage. 

It was only a little after six at this point, and they usually didn’t stop until at least seven, so they had some time to kill. They could just go home early, considering they weren’t even going to play games anymore, but no one really wanted to go home. Pidge closed her laptop, and got off of her bed. She dragged the bean bags to the center of the room, “Alright, losers, it’s time to get in some team bonding, so get over here,”

Lance decided to grab a pillow to sit on, giving Keith his bean bag again.

“Lance it’s okay, I can sit on the floor,” Keith said.

_ Oh great, he’s overly polite, too. _ “Nah, man, you’re our guest! I’ve got this pillow, I’m all good,” Lance smiled at Keith, giving him a thumbs up. Keith rolled his eyes and sat.

“Alright Pidge, what torture are you going to put us through this time?” Lance said, leaning back on his hands. 

“Oh Lance, you know me so well. Two truths and a lie.”

“What is this, a sleepover?” Lance laughed.

Pidge glared, “Oh hush, do you have any other ideas? We gotta get to know each other,”

“You mean we gotta get to know Keithy-boy over here,” Lance said, jabbing a thumb Keith’s way.

“Hey, I bet there’s still things we don’t know about each other, and you know how I  _ love _ to dig up all your secrets, Lance,” she said sarcastically.

“Hey! You totally do! Remember earlier?!”

She paused, “Okay, guilty as charged. Let’s start, I’ll go first,” She sat and thought for a moment, “Okay, first, I used to get chased by pigeons all the time when I was little. Second, I helped program that Santa Christmas tracker thing. Third, I don’t like peanuts.”

The three sat and thought for a moment. Hunk and Lance knew that the peanuts one was true, she liked everything with peanuts in it, except for the nuts themselves because they were dry. She was an amazing programmer, but how would she have worked on the santa tracker? She doesn’t work for the company that runs it. And the pigeon one seemed a little far-fetched, but her brother used to call her Pidge as well, before Lance and Hunk bet her, so Lance bet on the Santa tracker one.

“It’s gotta be the Santa tracker, you don’t work for the company that makes it!”

Hunk rolled his eyes, “Do you really think that would stop her, Lance? Really? It’s the pigeons,”

“She has her limits,” he looked over to Keith, “What do you think, Keith?”

He sat for a moment, likely still thinking, and responded, “The pigeon one, that’s a lie,”

“What?! That one is totally believable!” he turned to Pidge, “Pidge, c’mon, prove me right,”

“Sorry Lance, Keith and Hunk are right. You really think pigeons followed me around when I was little? Really? Also, my  _ brother _ works for the company that makes the Santa tracker, so I helped him work on it last year,” She said, triumphantly placing her hands on her hips.

Lance crossed his arms, “Pfft, whatever, it’s my turn now!” He thought, and came up with a few things that he thought would stump them, “Okay! So, to start, if I was a girl, my mom wanted to name me Shakira because she met my dad at a Shakira concert. Next, I once found treasure when I went diving. Aaaand finally, I have dated exactly two people,” He leaned back on his hands again, basking in the glory of his well-crafted puzzle. There’s no way that they’d figure it out.

Hunk spoke first, “Dude, there’s no way you would’ve found treasure, you woulda showed me!”

“Hunk, he goes diving all the time, he’s probably found a hundred things by now. I don’t believe the Shakira one. I’ve talked to your mom countless times, she isn’t crazy enough to do something like that,” Pidge asserted.

Keith piped up, “Nah, there’s no way you’ve only dated two people,”

Pidge turned to Keith with a playful smile spread across her face, “Oh yeah, and why’s that, Keith?”

Lance looked at Keith, astounded. He flushed, as did Keith.

“N-no reason, I just think that one’s the lie,”

Pidge eyed him, but didn’t say anything, “Okay, well none of us agree on the same one, so what is it, Lance?”

He threw his arms in the air, “KEITH IS THE WINNER!”

Pidge and Hunk’s jaws dropped. Pidge stood up, shouting, “No way! I don’t believe you! There is no way that you were gonna be named  _ Shakira _ !”

Hunk leaned towards Lance, “Duuude! You didn’t show me what you found?!”

Lance scratched the back of his head, “Hey, I left it at home, so I’ll show you when I go on break, okay? And Pidge, I can call her right now and have her tell you how my mother tried everything to make Shakira McClain happen,” The two of them sat back down, defeated. Lance looked over to Keith, “But yeah, you’re right, I’ve only ever dated one person,” He looked down at the floor, remembering how that relationship went, “It uh, it didn’t go well,”

“Good riddance, she was a bit-”

“ _ Pidge, _ ” Hunk warned.

She glared at Hunk, and rephrased, “You deserve so much better than her, Lance, don’t even let her cross your mind, she doesn’t deserve that kind of attention,”

Lance quickly interjected, “Anyway, let’s move on. Keith, it’s your turn,”

Keith’s eyes widened, not having thought of anything to say beforehand, “Uh, okay. Um, I carry a knife with me at all times, my favorite drink is strawberry milk, and I have a motorcycle back home,” The three of them stared at him, odd expressions on their faces, “What?”

“That’s just a weird array of truths and lies, you weirdo,” Pidge said, throwing a piece of paper she was playing with at him. He swatted it away.

“Alright, just guess already,”

They three of them sat and thought, and Lance didn’t know enough about Keith to really logic his way through this. All he knew about Keith is that he liked to be edgy, but wasn’t  _ truly _ as emo as he looked. He just liked to play it like he was. He had a soft side, and Lance really liked to see that side of him. And Lance had never seen a knife on Keith, and with how often he watched Keith he would  _ definitely _ notice that. 

“You don’t carry a knife on you, there’s no way,”

“Nope, Lance, you’re wrong, it’s the milk one,” Pidge said, crossing her arms and pulling off a deviously confident look.

“Listen, I know he’s an edgelord, but he’s not  _ that _ edgy,”

“You wanna bet?”

Hunk nodded towards Pidge, “Yeah, I’m agreeing with Pidge on this one, it fits his character. No offense Keith,”

Keith shrugged, “None taken, you’re right after all,”

Lance’s jaw dropped, “ _ What?! _ ”

“I’m lactose intolerant, and by the way,” Keith paused, rolling up his pant leg, revealing a small, purple blade strapped to his ankle, “I  _ always _ have this knife. Shiro gave it to me before he deployed, and I never keep it in the same place because it doesn’t always fit under my pant leg,” he said nonchalantly, spinning the knife in his hand before wielding it as if ready to fight. He then returned it to its holster.

Pidge extended her hands toward Keith, gesturing to him, “See? What did I tell you? Edgelord,”

They continued with a few more rounds of this, and before they knew it, it was 7:15. Keith stood up, as he should have left fifteen minutes ago, and gave a hasty goodbye, explaining that Shiro would be worrying about him if he wasn’t home by his usual time, “I’ll see you guys,” he said as he opened the door.

Hunk waved, “Later!”

Pidge piped up, “See you in lab!”

Lance smiled at Keith, waving as well, “Bye Keith, see you tomorrow,” Keith paused for a moment, before returning the smile and heading out without a word. 

——-

Keith had gone home that night and buried his face in his pillow, unsure of what was going on inside his head or inside his chest. His insides felt like they were doing somersaults, and his head was telling him things he wasn’t used to hearing.

_ Lance is kinda cute when he gets excited. _

Stop it.

_ He’s got an adorable laugh. _

Knock it off.

_ But how he looked at me when I left… _

Keith groaned, covering his head with another pillow.  _ No, stop it, knock it off, shut up, you’re reading too much into this. He was just being friendly. _

Shiro knocked on the door to Keith’s bedroom, “Keith, you alright?” he called out through the door, “You got home and immediately went to your room. Did something happen? You can tell me.”

Keith removed the pillow from his head, sitting up to speak clearly, “I’m fine, Shiro,”

“Can I come in then?” Keith didn’t respond, and Shiro came in anyway, “Hey, what’s up Keith?”

Keith didn’t really wanna talk about it, which wasn’t normal because he told Shiro pretty much everything. This was just… different. Keith had never had thoughts like this about anyone before, and he wasn’t sure how to handle it. Is this what having a crush was? Because it’s weird.

He sighed, “I don’t know, Shiro,”

“C’mon, I know there’s more to it than that,” Shiro came over and sat down on the edge of the bed, “You wouldn’t be in here like this if you didn’t know,”

Keith hated when Shiro was right, “I just… remember that guy from the cafe I told you about? Lance?”

Shiro nodded, “The cute guy?” Keith blushed, and didn’t give any sign of confirmation. Shiro didn’t need an answer, “Oh, okay. So uh, his name is Lance?”

“Yeah,”

“Did he hurt you?”

“What? No! No, it’s not like that…”

“Then… what is it like?”

Keith paused, sitting up next to Shiro and grabbing the edge of the bed with a little more force than necessary, tensing, “It’s… weird. When we hang out my chest feels all tingly and… I have… thoughts about him and I’ve never thought about someone like this…”

“Listen, Keith,” Shiro wrapped an arm around Keith, holding onto his shoulder, “you know this is normal right? And it’s a great thing! My little brother has a crush!”

Keith shoved him, “I do not!”

Shiro laughed, “Okay, okay, sure,” he made air quotes and said, “you don’t have a crush, but if you did, I’d say go for it,” Keith looked up at Shiro, stunned into silence, “You don’t have to rush it or dive in head-first, but don’t run away from it either,” he said, patting Keith’s shoulder, “‘cause I know you, and you would avoid it like the plague,” Shiro stood up, stretching, “You ready for dinner?”

Keith smiled, nodding, “Yeah, I am,” Shiro always made him feel at least a bit better. Even if Keith was still not 100% okay with this crush thing, Shiro made it seem less weird, and that was all Keith really needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like how at the end of the last chapter I was like "Yeah around 5K words or more" and this clocks in at... 7,325. I'm not gonna stop writing just because I hit a number, I was on a roll and it was flowing so nicely.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this and please leave kudos if you did, I really appreciate it and it makes me super happy to see people enjoying my stories <3


	4. Quicktime Events

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friendships strengthen but feelings continue to be confusing. Keith recalls the day Shiro lost his arm. Keith invites Lance over to his house for tutoring and they end up bonding instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I’m sorry about the huge and accidental hiatus, I have been extremely busy and have not had the time to write recently. But here I am with an over 10K word chapter! Woo!
> 
> Just wanna warn you guys that at some point Keith does tell the story of how Shiro lost his arm so if you’re sensitive to mentions of war, as well as hospitals and amputations, just skip the part that is in italics (it’s a decent size so you’ll see the beginning and the end). It’s not graphic, nothing is described, its just mentioned.
> 
> If you do skip the part about Shiro losing his arm, know that I pulled the names of Keith’s parents straight out of my ass and they are Richard and Elise. They were the first two names to pop into my head so there you go.
> 
> Link to Keith’s Room Layout:
> 
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vu5FdgYiooboHXkC5-pMJ2T6-Q5me1Tq/view?usp=sharing
> 
> As always, the music that I was listening to during different scenes is listed below, and I intend to keep this up since I think it does help me write.
> 
> “Hushabye Mountain” sung by Kimberly Walsh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaKSmhxhWhA&ab_channel=chezzasoldieraloud  
> “Misery Business” by Paramore  
> “Famous” by Skillet  
> “Fire Alarm” by Castlecomer  
> “Angel” by Juanes
> 
> Again, my tumblr is your-local-cactus-goddess! Enjoy!

“Don’t forget, class! Your exam is next Tuesday! Study hard!” their Calculus 3 teacher shouted over the roar of students leaving the classroom as she dismissed them.

“Ugh,” Lance groaned, “This is gonna be awful, I don’t get half this chapter,” he said, waving his hands around in the air in exasperation as they walked down the hall. Lance had been doing really well in his calculus class and thought it was way easier than when he took calculus 2 last semester. His quiz grades were better, he understood the homework assignments, and he bragged about how good he was at calculus 3. But the class did a full one-eighty on him and was going to kick his ass if he didn’t get his act together. His last quiz was less than fantastic, and his homework was taking him _way_ too long to do because he has no idea _how_ to do it. He really thought he was going to sail through this class, but apparently not.

“I could tutor you,” Keith said, quietly, shrugging, “I mean, if you want.”

Lance’s muscles tensed, and as they walked together he felt like he was forgetting how to walk properly, steps feeling more awkward and forced than usual. How long were his strides usually? Is Keith watching him? He swallowed, as his throat felt dry. Keith was offering to tutor him? While his _rival_ offering to tutor him would normally be offensive, this was _Keith_ , who just basically volunteered to spend more time with Lance, and Lance wasn’t going to pass this up. His stomach was doing flips and he felt unreasonably nervous.

“Y-yeah! Sure! Sounds good!” he rattled off quickly, if just to avoid saying something stupid, “When are you uh, available?”

Keith thought for a moment, responding, “I’m busy Saturday, but I’m free Sunday,”

Lance nodded, “Me too— I mean, yeah, that works for me,” he fumbled over his words but got his point across.

Keith chuckled, “Alright, I’ll text you my address and a time to meet up later,”

Just as their conversation ended, they reached their chem lab room, and Lance gathered himself enough to open the door for Keith, “After you, m’lady,” he gestured for Keith to walk through, to which Keith rolled his eyes and shook his head, but entered anyway.

“You’re so weird,”

——-

The rest of Keith’s Thursday flew by, and Friday was generally uneventful for everyone. The group wasn’t meeting up, nothing thrilling happened during any of their classes, and everyone had something to do that night, ranging from homework to errands to familial obligations, so it was a pretty quiet night for Keith as he sat at home and typed up his English paper that was due later in the week.

He was assigned to write a narrative paper about something or someone in his life that has changed him, or shaped him in some way, and he was having trouble getting started. It wasn’t that he didn’t have ideas for his paper; no, he just didn’t know how to start talking about any of them. He could write about how he was orphaned as a baby and was adopted into a loving family that gave him a much better life than he would have had in the orphanage, but since he didn’t exactly remember what being adopted was like, he decided that paper wouldn’t read well as it would consist solely of conjecture with no heart behind it.

His next best idea was to write about the time when he was sixteen and Shiro was overseas.

_He was sitting on the couch in his living room watching Godzilla vs. Mothra with his parents, his mom perched on their plush armchair and him and his dad sprawled out on the couch. Keith was so engrossed in the movie that he barely remembers the phone even ringing. He just sat on the couch and continued to grab individual pieces of popcorn, enjoying the probably unhealthy amount of salt and butter._

_“Hello?” he heard his mom practically sing into the phone. She always had a very comforting and melodic voice. She used to sing the best lullabies to Keith when he was little and had nightmares, his favorite being ‘Hushabye Mountain’. It always calmed him down. Some nights his mom would work late, so when he would have nightmares and his mom couldn't sing to him, his dad did a pretty decent job at singing the lullaby himself. Shiro even sang it to him once._

_Soon after his mother picked up the phone, he heard an odd noise from the kitchen, followed by his mom calling out, “Richard,” she said as she walked back into the room, crying, “Richard, it’s Shiro,” she managed to say between sobs, “h-he’s hurt,”_

_Keith remembers the color draining from his dad’s face, and how quickly everything around him moved in that instant. One minute he was sitting on the couch with his dad, the bowl of popcorn settled between his legs, and the next he had a jacket being shoved at him and he was being told to put his shoes on, quickly. He instinctively did what he was told, and ran outside to the car with his parents._

_The street lights blurred by him, a mixture of reds, yellows, greens, some bright whites. They drove for a while and Keith had no idea how long or how far they drove. When the car stopped, he was ushered out by his dad as his mom ran up to the doors of the building, going inside. Keith barely registered where they were until they were inside, immediately recognizing the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital. His mom was already thanking the woman at the front desk, rushing ahead of him and his dad. They jogged to catch up and finally caught up with his mother, who was arguing with another woman in soft purple scrubs that was blocking his mother’s advance._

_“Ma’am, I’m sorry, but he’s in surgery right now, you’re going to have to wait out here,”_

_She sobbed, “But it’s my son! It’s my baby in there! I need to see him!” she pleaded._

_The woman gently grabbed his mom’s shoulders, “Ma’am, I promise you we are doing everything we can to make sure you get to see him as soon as possible, and we’ll take care of him, but I need you to come take a seat and calm down,” She said, leading his mom to a nearby chair, where she plopped down and cried. The nurse remained by her side, assuring her that her son would be okay._

_He and his dad moved over to his mom, where his dad placed a reassuring hand on his wife’s shoulder, crouching down to be at eye-level with her, “Elise, it’s going to be okay, everything’s going to be okay, alright honey? Shiro will be fine,” She looked up at him, eyes red and puffy, and she collapsed into his shoulder, shaking. He shushed her, cradling the back of her head, “Shh shh shh, it’s okay honey, it’s okay,”_

_Keith stood next to them, unsure of what to do or say. He was sort of lost in his own mind right now, as the reality of the situation settled in. He had no idea what was wrong with Shiro, as his mom was too hysterical for him to understand, and his dad was preoccupied with calming down his mom. He just stood alone next to them, until the nurse that was previously comforting his mother came over to him._

_“Hey, are you alright?” he looked up at her but didn’t respond or given any sort of answer. She smiled sympathetically, “You look like a brave young man, it must run in the family,” Still no response. “Is Shiro your brother?” Keith finally nodded. “Your brother is a very courageous man and we’re going to take very good care of him. And hey,” she paused for a moment as she made eye contact with Keith, “he’s going to be just fine.”_

_It was a couple of hours later when the doctor finally came out, coming over to meet the family. He shook hands with his dad and mom, and he told them the details of what happened. Apparently, Shiro was with his squadron on the ground as they were refueling for their next flight when they were ambushed by a rogue militia group. Shiro had avoided harm for the most part but had been shot in the arm protecting his fellow airmen._

_“We needed to amputate his arm, so when he’s conscious I want to bring you into the room to discuss his options in terms of possibly getting a prosthetic,”_

_As the doctor finished telling them what he needed to, his dad thanked the doctor and held his mom as the doctor walked back towards the operating room. The three of them sat there quietly as they all calmed down, yet remained anxious to see Shiro._

_Eventually, they had moved Shiro to a normal room, and once he was awake, the family was allowed to see him. Keith filed into the room behind his parents, and when he saw Shiro he felt sick to his stomach but relieved at the same time. Where Shiro’s right arm would normally lay was nothing more than thin air, his arm being reduced to a short stub._

_Shiro offered up a weak but genuine smile at the sight of his family, “Hey, guys,” their mom immediately embraced him, starting to tear up again._

_“Don’t you ever scare me like that again, Takashi!” She said, holding him tighter but managing to avoid hurting him._

_Shiro held her with his left arm, chuckling, “Heh, sorry Mom, I didn’t mean to scare you,”_

_Their dad walked over as his mother stood up, wiping her eyes, “I’m proud of you, Shiro. I’m sorry it had to turn out like... this, though,” he said, looking over to Shiro’s arm._

_Shiro moved it a bit, still not used to the absence of his right arm, “It’s alright, I did what I needed to do to protect my squadron, and I’m here so... that’s about the best I can ask for,” Shiro looked over to Keith, who was standing a bit off from Shiro, unsure of what to do with himself. Shiro was used to Keith being like this and needing a little push, so he smiled softly and said, “Hey, get over here,” Keith did as he was told, standing next to the hospital bed, “It was movie night tonight, right? What movie did you watch?”_

_“Godzilla vs. Mothra,” Keith mumbled._

_“I didn’t expect anything less. The remake?”_

_Keith made a disgusted face, “Ew, no, the original,”_

_Shiro laughed, ruffling Keith’s hair, “Good, my little brother still has taste while I’ve been away,”_

_Soon the doctor came in, as promised, and they discussed Shiro getting a prosthetic after his arm has healed enough. Shiro wanted to try it, and while it took him a while to get used to it, and the process of getting used it involved a lot of frustration, he never shied away from trying to get better with it, and soon it seemed like he had always had a prosthetic because of how naturally he moved with it. It was incredible, and Keith admired his brother not only for the sacrifice he made to save his fellow airmen but for his strength and perseverance._

Keith had always been proud of his brother and looked up to him, but the amount of fortitude he showed in the next several weeks was beyond admirable, and it changed Keith. It made Keith want to try harder with different things in life, like school for instance. He went from “I’m passing my classes” to “I have straight A’s” in a very short amount of time, and then he started working out with Shiro, and eventually worked out on his own, mostly running.

The same year Keith was to go to college, Shiro also had decided to go back to college to earn his Master’s Degree in chemical engineering. By some stroke of luck, they both ended up at Altea, and they decided to house together in a two-bedroom apartment right on campus. Keith is beyond thankful to have Shiro in his life because he doesn’t know where he’d be without him. He’s a better person because of Shiro.

Of course, all that was easy to think about. To write about it, however, was a whole different concept, and he was still stuck. Sighing, he reached for his phone and opened up the chat client the group used to communicate. He knew Hunk was in the same English class that he was, and he wanted to know how Hunk started his papers.

 

_xXInvisible-BladeXx started the group “English is dumb”._

 

_xXInvisible-BladeXx added ArmoredTeddyBear._

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: Hey Hunk?_

ArmoredTeddyBear: Hey Keith! What’s up?

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: How do you start writing your papers?_

ArmoredTeddyBear: I… open a word doc and type?

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: No I mean…_

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: I know what I want to write about but I don’t know how to start writing about it._

ArmoredTeddyBear: OH, OKAY!

ArmoredTeddyBear: Well if you don’t know how to start the paper, then don’t start at the beginning.

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: …?_

ArmoredTeddyBear: What I mean is that you should skip writing the introduction and just go right into the body paragraphs, since that’s what you’re ready to write about.

ArmoredTeddyBear: And as you write you’ll sorta write the intro in your head as you go.

ArmoredTeddyBear: Same thing with your closing, don’t worry about it until you’re done writing what you’re ready to write.

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: That… actually makes a lot of sense. Thank you, Hunk._

ArmoredTeddyBear: Yeah, no problem, Keith!

Keith put his phone down next to him on his bed, assuming the conversation was over, but a few seconds later he go another message from Hunk.

ArmoredTeddyBear: You can always send me your paper if you want me to edit it or give you ideas, by the way.

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: Oh, sure. Thanks, I’d appreciate that. I can edit yours too, if you want._

ArmoredTeddyBear: Yeah! That’d be great! :D

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: I thought Lance was the only one that used emojis?_

ArmoredTeddyBear: He rubs off on me sometimes, I’m around him too often.

ArmoredTeddyBear: Like right now, he’s rambling about you tutoring him this weekend? And I never used to ramble but then I’d listen to Lance and think to myself, ‘You know, I have a lot to say!’ and Lance supported that sentiment so now I talk a lot more.

ArmoredTeddyBear: Pidge is getting mad, I’m pretty sure that Lance is going to get something thrown at him soon.

ArmoredTeddyBear: Or right now, right now works too. She threw a mechanical pencil and now it’s lodged in the wall by Lance.

ArmoredTeddyBear: Hey I have to go, I need to calm Lance down if I’m ever going to get this paper done.

ArmoredTeddyBear: Email me what you have whenever you’re ready!

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: Okay, thanks again._

_ArmoredTeddyBear is Offline._

Keith re-read Hunk’s messages. Lance was rambling about being tutored? Was that bad? Hunk didn’t say what Lance was saying, and with Lance, Keith knew it could really be anything. Lance rambled about good things and bad things alike. Keith sat and thought about it for a while before returning to writing his paper, but it sat in the back of his mind the whole time.

——-

After a few hours of writing, Keith believed that he had a good start for his paper and decided to email what he had to Hunk. It was in no way complete, as he didn’t even _have_ an introductory paragraph, but he figured Hunk would be able to help him out with that. He sent Hunk a message with his paper attached, and went into the kitchen to get a snack. It was getting a little late in the night, and he didn’t eat much for dinner because Shiro didn’t cook tonight. It’s not that he didn’t eat when Shiro didn’t cook, but he was never as hungry for whatever he made. Shiro’s cooking was incredible, and just smelling his cooking made his mouth water. Keith couldn’t say the same about his mediocre bowls of beef-flavored ramen with absolutely nothing else in it because really, that was just too much effort. Not even bothering with actual cooking, he settled for a Pop Tart.

By the time he came back, strawberry Pop-Tart in hand, he already had a message from Hunk. He was surprised that he read his paper that quickly, because Keith wasn’t gone for _that_ long. He clambered back onto his bed and opened up the chat again, and saw that the message was clearly not from Hunk.

_xXInvisible-BladeXx sent a file. (Downloaded)_

ArmoredTeddyBear: heyyyyy Keith! :D

ArmoredTeddyBear: Hunk’s in the bathroom rn but i downloaded your paper for him so it’d be all ready by the time he got back

ArmoredTeddyBear: i haven’t read it tho! don’t worry i’m not an asshole like i know this is a personal paper

ArmoredTeddyBear: dude are you there???

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: Yeah I’m here, I was getting a snack._

ArmoredTeddyBear: :D

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: And you can read it if you want, I don’t mind. Thanks for not reading it though._

ArmoredTeddyBear: wait i’m so confused can i read it or????

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: Yes Lance, you can read it. I just meant thanks for not reading it without asking first, that’s considerate._

A small smile rested on Keith’s face, and he waited for Lance’s next message. Several minutes passed and he figured Lance was still reading his paper, but then he got another message.

ArmoredTeddyBear: Keith, what did you do to Lance?

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: What do you mean?_

ArmoredTeddyBear: He’s just on the floor with his hands on his face? What’d you say?

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: I don’t know?_

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: I said he was considerate?_

ArmoredTeddyBear: Oh yeah, that’ll do it.

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: Seriously?_

ArmoredTeddyBear: Well, yeah, it’s you.

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: What does that have to do with it?_

ArmoredTeddyBear: fa;kslgh gsfd;h

ArmoredTeddyBear: dfasmf3

ArmoredTeddyBear: afsdaaaaaaaaaaa

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: Uh, Hunk?_

ArmoreTeddyBear: Sorry, Lance kind of half-tackled me and told me I am to say nothing more on the topic.

ArmoredTeddyBear: But I’ll get to reading your paper now! I’ll send mine soon!

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: Alright, I’m looking forward to reading it._

ArmoredTeddyBear: Aw, thanks Keith!

Keith put his phone back down again, unsure of what just happened. Once Hunk sent his paper over, Keith stowed away his confusion and got right back to work.

——-

Around 11:30 Saturday morning, Keith heard a knock at the front door. He already knew who it was. He and Pidge always tried to hang out one-on-one at least once a week. Sometimes it didn’t happen because Pidge’s classes were pretty demanding and sometimes Shiro needed Keith for different tasks, but they were pretty good at managing their busy lives so they could still hang out.

He opened the door, looking down at almost exactly the right angle to make eye contact with her, “Hey Pidge,” he said with a small smile.

“Morning, Keith! You ready for some hardcore procrastination?” she said as she walked in, backpack slung over her shoulder.

Keith steps aside to let Pidge in, and she slips off her shoes and shuffles inside. She goes into Keith’s room as if she’s lived there forever, and at this point it might as well be her second home. Keith closed the door and followed her into his room, with her already taking up her usual spot at his desk. He hopped onto his bed, opening up his laptop.

“So, what’re we doin’ for lunch?”

“Uh, you wanna just order from that burger place that’s nearby?”

“You mean the gourmet place? Hell yeah! I’m ready to consume twenty dollars of artery-clogging beauty, gimme the menu,” Pidge said, as Keith pulled out a menu from his end table drawer, flinging it over to Pidge like a Frisbee. She caught it effortlessly, as if they had practiced this a thousand times, and skimmed over it.

They order from this place more than they should, but they had the _best_ gourmet burgers and shakes Keith’s ever tasted. The burgers were named after different old cars, and Keith’s favorite is the Charger. It was a burger slathered in peanut butter with a fried banana, smoked bacon, red onions, and pepper jack cheese. Believe it or not, it’s _incredible_ despite how god awful it sounds. Pidge makes a face at it every time Keith gets it. _It’s just because she hasn’t tried it… yet,_ Keith thinks to himself. Pidge’s favorite is the Mustang, which features roma tomato, iceberg lettuce, chopped basil, mozzarella, and balsamic glaze.

Of course, they _have_ to order shakes with their burgers. Pidge believes its a sin not to. Keith gets the creamsicle one because the light and tangy orange flavor goes really well with the banana, while Pidge gets the cinnamon toast crunch because that’s her favorite cereal. Once you order the burgers with the fries as well as the shakes, it comes to about 18 dollars a person, but it’s _so worth it._ And the fries come with this sweet chili sauce that sounded absolutely disgusting but is to die for, according to Pidge, but Keith is inclined to agree with her on that one.

Once they ordered their burgers, having played rock-paper-scissors to decide who was going to call (Pidge won— she usually does), they sat around in Keith’s room because they didn’t want to start working until after they ate because Pidge claimed she would be “too distracted, otherwise.” Keith took his usual place on his bed while Pidge leaned back in his desk chair, groaning.

“God, I’m starving. Distract me from dying, Keith,”

He rolled his eyes, “Okay, what do you wanna do?”

“Let’s talk about your love life since that seems to be picking up a bit,” she said, a sly smile on her face.

Keith’s eyes widened, and he flushed a little, “Pidge, I don’t _have_ a love life,” he said, trying to cover it up.

“Uh huh, and that’s why you just resisted the urge to jump out the window next to you out of embarrassment because you have no love life. C’mon Keith, I know you’re crushing on a certain someone and if you don’t spill before our lunch gets here you’re paying for both of us,”

Keith flopped down onto his bed, staring at his ceiling. _I really should put some posters up there, it would give me something to look at._ “Pidge, why do we have to do this? I’m not even sure if I _like_ him, I just like being around him,”

She rolled her eyes, “Okay, and _that’s_ why the two of you cannot stop turning red as all hell when you’re around each other, uh huh, sure Kogane,” she turned to fully face him and she leaned forward, “Listen, are you actually not sure if you like him or not?”

“Well, yeah. I’ve never really experienced this before so… it’s weird?” he took a second and scrunched his face up in concentration, “I mean, I like hanging out with him, and he’s really funny, he’s charming, he cares a lot—”

“So what’s the problem?”

“I don’t know! It just doesn’t feel right! Like he’s going to run away from me the moment I try to do anything because maybe he’s not into guys! So I’m just trying not to think of it as a crush so it just goes away but it’s not working as well as I hoped it would!” he said, frustration sewn into every word. He groaned and took the pillow out from under his head, promptly trying to smother himself with it.

Pidge shook her head, “Man, Keith, I didn’t realize how _bad_ you had it for Lance,”

Through the pillow, Keith let out an annoyed, “Yeah, tell me about it,”

Pidge walked over to the bed, taking the pillow of Keith’s sulking face and tossing it aside, “C’mon, sit up,” she said, calmly, “Listen, you shouldn’t be so worried about this. I can’t tell you all of Lance’s secrets but I really don’t think you have anything to worry about. Even if Lance were to reject you, and that’s a big if, he wouldn’t hate you for trying,” Keith slumped, still feeling defeated, so Pidge continued, “Oh my god, Keith, Lance really likes you. I don’t know how he feels about you because he gushes to Hunk more than he does to me, but he wouldn’t discontinue your guys’ friendship just because you have a crush on him. He’d probably take it as a compliment that would just inflate his ego,” she said, hands flying up in the air dramatically.

Keith sat for a moment, drawing his legs up to his chest. He took a deep breath, “You really think so?” he said, quietly.

She nodded, “There’s no harm in trying,”

Keith gave her a lopsided smile, “Okay, but I’m gonna take it at my own pace, and I’m gonna take it slow,” he paused, “Thanks, Pidge,”

“No problemo, Keithy-boy,” Suddenly, there was a knock on the door, “Wow, good timing, I’m _starving_ ,”

She jumped off the edge of the bed and practically bolted out of the room. Keith stood up, smiling softly to himself, despite the worry crowding his chest.

Maybe this would work out.

——-

It was Sunday now and Lance walked beside Keith down the main street that went through campus. He felt weird again about how he was walking, his legs feeling like they’re doing this for the first time. Lance chose to ignore it as best as he could in favor of making small talk with Keith on their way to his and his brother’s apartment.

“So how old is Shiro?”

“Twenty-eight. He had to go into the air force after he finished his bachelor’s so he came back to school when I did, a few years after his accident,”

Lance hummed in understanding, “Yeah, I remember reading about that in your essay,”

Keith visibly tensed, and Lance wondered if he said something wrong, “You… you actually read it?”

“Well, yeah. You said I could and I didn’t know much about your brother so I figured that before I met him I should at least have a little background on him, ya know?”

Keith nodded but had visibly reddened. Lance’s felt a pain in his chest, feeling guilty. Was Keith mad at him? He thought it was okay to read his paper, but maybe he crossed a line.

They walked the rest of the short distance to Keith’s apartment in comfortable silence, Keith’s keys jangling loudly as he pulled them out of his pocket. He unlocked the door and Lance followed him in.

Lance looked around. From where he was at the front entrance, he could see a small kitchen with long-dry dishes sitting in a drying rack, along with a couple of mugs. The countertops shined as if they had just been cleaned, and overall the kitchen was the cleanest kitchen Lance has ever seen. No spots on the floor, no haphazardly hung towels, not even a spot on the stove. He had to admit, he was pretty impressed. He looked over to Keith as he took his shoes off, as polite people do, and Keith was staring at the kitchen, seemingly confused. Lance guessed this wasn’t normal, but maybe Shiro just did some tidying up before Lance came over. _Well, that’s nice of him_.

The living room was next, where a small black couch seemingly made out of a leather-like material sat up against the right wall, with a small black coffee table in front of it with a few coasters stacked in a neat pile. Next to the couch was a small end table with a minimalistic white lamp on it. A framed picture of what Lance could make out to be Keith’s family was propped up in front of the lamp.On the opposite wall was a black television stand with a decent-sized television on top. There was a Playstation nestled beneath the screen, with a few games in the cabinet of the television stand.

Next to the couch, there was a door leading to one of the bedrooms, likely Shiro’s since Keith opened the door next to the television and headed in.

“Welcome to casa de Keith,” Keith said, dryly, dropping his backpack carefully next to his bed.

Lance stopped soon after passing through the threshold of the door. He wasn’t expecting Keith’s room to be so... expressive, to be completely honest. He didn’t take Keith for the decorating type. But here he is, overwhelmed by the numerous posters practically hiding the blue walls of his room, covering almost every inch. There were Skillet posters, Panic! At the Disco Posters, some about space, and several others, some too obscure for Lance to identify. Lance was surprised the ceiling wasn’t covered too.

Once Lance tore his eyes from the posters, he actually looked around the room. Keith’s bed, which was tucked in the far corner of the room, sported a black comforter with a couple of red pillows and a black frame. Next to his bed was a black end table with a digital alarm clock, a small red desk lamp, and a coaster. At the foot of his bed was his dresser. On the wall next to the end table, a small window showed a view of the apartment complex’s parking lot. On the other side of the window was Keith’s desk, which was relatively well-kept aside from a few loose papers and a couple pencils. Closest to the end table and beneath the window was a bookcase that was pretty full, with a variety of books ranging from fantasy and sci-fi novels to space and engineering textbooks. Closest to the door, in the wall opposite the bookcase, was an in-wall closet with sliding mirror doors, which made Keith’s room look bigger than it actually was.

Overall, Keith’s room seemed pretty well-kept aside from a few stray clothes here and there, mainly socks, but Lance really didn’t know what he was expecting from Keith’s room, in all honesty.

Lance didn’t realize how long he was just standing there gawking at Keith’s room until Keith snapped his fingers in front of Lance, “Earth to Lance? You okay?”

Lance looked at Keith and laughed, “Haha, yeah I was just admiring your decorating, you have a pretty cool room, Keith!”

Keith crossed his arms, “Yeah, I guess,” he mumbled, face reddening. Again? Lance didn’t know if he was embarrassing Keith or making him mad or what, but he figured the best way to avoid this happening again was to start studying.

“So, where am I sitting?” he asked cheerfully.

Keith looked around his room as if he didn’t think about this beforehand, “Uh, you can sit at my desk, I can work over on my bed,”

Lance nodded and waltzed over to Keith’s desk. He carefully stacked the papers already present on Keith’s desk into a neat pile and put them aside, as to not lose them for Keith. He got out his laptop, calculus book, and a pen and paper. He heard Keith get up onto his bed and get out his own book.

“If you need any help just ask, that’s what I’m here for,”

“You got it, Mullet!”

Lance began working, and for the first couple of homework problems he didn’t have any issues and got them right on the first try. However, the next couple of problems were Greek to him, and he was entirely lost.

“Hey, Keith? Can you come help me? I have no idea what this is asking me to do; I don’t think it’s speaking English anymore,”

Keith rolled his eyes, smiling, “Yeah, one sec,” Keith got up, un-burying himself from his papers and a blanket that Lance hadn’t noticed that he had gotten. It wasn’t even that cold in the room?

Keith stood next to Lance and read the problem on the screen as he chewed on his lower lip in concentration. Once he was done reading, he nodded once, and gestured to the book in Lance’s lap, “Can I?”

Lance handed him the book, “Yeah, of course,”

Keith began flipping pages, looking exactly as if he knew where he was going in the book. He stopped on a page so quickly and pointed to an example problem as if he had memorized the damn thing, “This example problem is really similar to the homework one, you remember how to do a cross product?” Lance nods, “Okay well, that comes into play here because the line that it’s asking you to find is in the direction of these two vectors’ cross product. Then you just have to find a point on the line by using the equations of the planes and solving for the different variables,”

Keith really breezed through that, and Lance wasn’t any better off than before he asked for Keith’s help, “Wait wait wait, I’m still confused, how do you find a point on the line? I don’t know how to do that,”

Keith leaned over, grabbing a pencil and a random piece of paper from his desk, “Okay, so you know how to find the direction of the line, right?” Lance nodded, “And you know because it’s asking for the symmetric equation of the line, you need a point on the line, right?” Lance nodded, a bit less confident than previously since he hadn’t exactly memorized the different equation forms yet, “Well, how do you solve two equations with three unknown variables?”

Lance sat and thought, but came up empty “You… don’t?” he offered, and nodded.

“Right, but we know that the line intersects each of the planes at some point because of the direction of the line, see?” Keith pointed to the equation, and to an outsider, this would all sound like some mathematical mumbo-jumbo about dumb lines in space, which is exactly what it was, but in that moment Lance was starting to _understand_ more of this mumbo-jumbo. He nodded, “And since the line goes on infinitely, we can set one of the variables equal to zero so then we have two equations with two unknown variables, which I’m sure you can solve. I assume you passed Algebra?” he said, crossing his arms and leaning back against his desk, smirking.

Lance scoffed, “Rude!”

Keith chuckled, “Do your work, McClain,”

Lance worked out the problem, suddenly seeing everything a lot more clearly, and he breezed through the next couple of problems. Of course, there was another roadblock, and he turned to Keith again, “How the heck do they expect us to draw these 3-D graphs without it looking like a big scribble?! I don’t even know what I’m drawing anymore!”

Keith continued to type on his computer, and quickly tilted his head to the side and back up, signaling for Lance to come over and show him what he’s working on.

Keith explained to him, in excruciating detail, how to draw each of the shapes they’d need to draw for the exam. He taught Lance some tricks on how to identify what shape he was drawing, and how to clean it up a bit. Lance was still struggling a bit with drawing a hyperboloid of one sheet, but honestly, who doesn’t? It just _sounds_ complicated to draw. He did improve though, and he finally was understanding what they were doing in class, and he couldn’t be more relieved and thankful.

“Keith, you’re literally the best, you know that? I woulda been banging my head against a wall over these problems if it wasn’t for you,” he said, smiling at him.

Keith smiled, “I’m… glad I could help,”

Lance flopped back onto Keith’s bed, letting out a dramatic groan, “Can we pleeeease take a break though? My brain needs a break,”

Keith laughed, “Yeah, I guess we should. I can see the smoke coming out of your ears,”

It was Lance’s turn to flush, “Keith! You’re so rude!” he said, hand coming up to his ear as if there really was smoke coming out.

Keith smiled and shoved lance playfully, “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. But what do you want to do?”

Lance carefully placed his laptop on the ground, then sat cross-legged at one end of the bed with Keith at the other end, “I don’t know, we could get to know each other better,”

Keith raised an eyebrow, “And how are we going to do that?”

Lance thought for a moment, embarrassed that all of the ways he thought to get to know Keith would involve some sort of sleepover-esque game. But honestly, Lance enjoyed them, and they really did work in terms of getting to know each other. It worked well last time.

“Alright, Mullet, how about a simple game of twenty questions? You know how to play?”

Keith nodded, “Yeah, sure, that should kill some time,” he said, getting comfortable on his end of the bed.

“Do you wanna start or should I?”

“Hm, I’ll guess first,”

Lance thought about what they should guess at. He figured it’d be easiest to keep track of the topic if they kept it the same. He looked around Keith’s room, suddenly remembering all of the posters that surrounded him.

He clapped his hands together, “I’ve got it! Music!”

“Music?”

“Yeah! We’re going to guess each other’s favorite band or artist, sound good?”

“But what if I don’t know your favorite band? LIke what if I’ve never heard of them before?”

Lance shrugged and grinned, “Guess you’ll learn about them when you _lose_ ,”

Keith sat up straighter, clearly ready for a challenge, “Alright, McClain, you’re on. Is your favorite band a group of people?”

“Yep! Is yours a group?”

“You can’t steal my questions!”

“Totally can, spit it out Kogane,”

He pouted, “Yeah they are. Is yours a pop band?”

“Doin’ good, Mullet. Is yours a rock band?”

“Some people would say that,” he smirked, “Does yours have any girls?”

“Nope!” he said, popping the ‘p’, “Does yours?”

Keith rolled his eyes, “God Lance, so original, but yes, it does,” he thought for a moment, at a loss of what to ask next, “Are their songs... on the radio a lot?”

“Pff, yeah they are, and they’re a bit overplayed, but I still love them. Does your group consists of girls _and_ guys?”

“Mhm, you think you know?”

Lance shook his head, “Nah, it’s still too early to tell, let’s keep going, it’s your turn,”

“Does the lead singer usually sing in a higher octave or a lower octave?”

Lance’s eyes widened, “That’s… oddly specific. Definitely higher, though. Uh... “ He stared down at the bed, not realizing how hard asking questions about bands was going to be. He had some guesses, so he guessed he could just guess? “Is it Skillet?” he said, pointing to a poster on the wall.

Keith shook his head, “Nice try, Lance, but nope, keep guessing,” he paused for a minute, and Lance thought that he zoned out completely until he looked up and met Lance’s eyes, determined, “Your favorite band is Maroon 5,”

Lance gaped at Keith. How did he get it so quickly?! Was Lance really that obvious? “You got me, Keith, I’m a sucker for Adam’s beautiful voice. Well, this just means I get to keep guessing at yours. Is it Evanescence?”

“Nope,”

“The… Cranberries?”

“Try again,”

Lance groaned, “There isn’t even anything else I can ask you, I just have to take pot shots at this point!”

Keith smirked, and laughed a little, “You came up with the topic, Lance, this is your own fault,”

He flopped back on the bed again, wracking his brain for the very few rock bands with females in them that he knew of. He only knew one more, and he hoped it was it because he didn’t wanna just forfeit, “Is it Paramore?”

“Bingo,” Keith said, nonchalantly.

Lance bolted up, pumping a fist in the air, “Woo! See? I told you I’d get it!”

“I still beat you,” Keith taunted, poking Lance’s ribs with his foot.

“Ew, get your foot off of me, you weirdo!” he laughed, shoving Keith’s foot away, “Now, you have to tell me what your favorite Paramore song is, they’re awesome,” Keith looked at Lance in surprise, “Hey, just because I listen to a lot of pop music that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate pure talent when I hear it,”

Keith smiled and got up from his bed, grabbing a wireless speaker from his closet. He synced it to his phone and scrolled through his music until he found his favorite song, and let it play. Lance immediately recognized it, as it was undoubtedly their most well-known song. “Misery Business” was a jam, and Lance knew the lyrics. He started singing along when he looked over to Keith, who was bopping his head, bouncing his leg, and tapping his hand to the beat. He looked tense, but Lance felt that Keith really wanted to jam out to this song. It was his _favorite_ after all.

Lance decided that Keith was never just going to get up on his own, so he stood up and started dancing around Keith’s room, singing all the while. He pretended to play the air guitar and looked over to Keith to see him laughing, like _really_ laughing. Lance interrupted his sweet moves to pull Keith up off the bed as the chorus came around and Lance continued his rampage. Keith was still nodding his head to the song and was kind of dancing to it now, but was more so just bopping along to it.

Lance could really tell Keith wanted to dance, but was probably embarrassed to dance in front of Lance. He wasn’t gonna just have Keith stand there like that and watch Lance have all the fun though, so he paused the song near the end, and put his hand on his hip, cocking it out and smiling at Keith because the fact that he was being shy was downright adorable.

“Okay, Keith. I’m gonna get you to dance, so what gets those hips moving? What makes Keith _dance_?”

Keith shook his head, “I don’t really dance, Lance,”

“Nope! I don’t believe it! Everyone dances by themselves in their room, even you, Mullet. So tell me a song you really can’t resist rocking out to and I’ll jam right alongside you,”

Keith crossed his arms, “Lance, I’m not gonna willingly embarrass myself in front of you,”

Lance shook his head, “See, that’s where I come into play because I am _constantly embarrassing_ , you can’t be more embarrassing than me. See? You’ve got no argument, so get over here, Kogane,” Lance said, holding out the phone for Keith.

Keith reluctantly slumped over, scrolling through his phone. Eventually, he started chewing on his bottom lip again, apparently trying really hard to find a song. Soon enough, he tapped on one and put his phone down by the speaker. Lance wasn’t too familiar with the song, but had heard it before: “Famous” by Skillet, he thinks. His little brother listened to this type of music more so than he did, but Lance knew this was a really good song.

Before Lance even got into the beat, Keith was already moving, and Lance was _astonished_. Keith was definitely not that good of a dancer, but the energy that he suddenly put into his movements was a bit shocking. Lance took a second to catch up but was dancing right alongside Keith like he said, watching Keith throw his head side to side, his fluffy head of hair flopping all over the place. He watched all of Keith move. The way he was light on his feet, the way his arms moved so fluidly, and the way he moved his hips, which was admittedly hypnotic.

As the song drew to a close, the two of them were both breathing heavily, as they really went hard on that song. Much to Lance’s continued surprise, Keith smiled and asked, “What’s next? I haven’t heard any of your music,” Lance wasn’t really expecting Keith to want to keep dancing but hey, what the heck, this was fun.

Lance looked up a song that was still a bit more Keith’s style but was inching closer to what Lance usually listened to. As “Fire Alarm” by Castlecomer poured out of the speakers, the two of them were set in motion again, this time Keith getting up on his bed like a little kid would do. Keith seemed to almost be more into this song than the last, but that might just have been because this song was easier to dance to. Lance hooted and hollered at Keith as he jammed out, getting his whole body into it. He moved his legs with such fiery grace, and he really liked moving his head around so that his hair flopped all over the place. Lance decided, after a little bit, it was time for him to join Keith.

“Make room!” He clambered up onto the bed, just as the slow part of the song was playing, and he got his hips really swaying to it. Keith was laughing, doing a similar movement, and right when the song picked back up, he threw his head around again, this time quickly swinging his arms back and forth. Lance loved the way Keith looked when he was enjoying himself like this. It was like he didn’t have a care in the world and it was just him and Keith in this moment, together. Lance didn’t want this to end.

Once the song ended, Keith sat down on the bed, breathing heavy again. Lance followed suit, but decided to lay down on his back instead and stare up at the ceiling, smiling. He looked over to Keith, who still had a smile on his face, “What’re you smiling about, Mr. Dark-and-Brooding?”

Keith pushed him with his foot again, “I’m having a good time, dickbag,” he said playfully, “I didn’t know you could sing and dance like that though, Lance. It’s kind of… impressive,”

“Pfft, that’s nothing, you should hear me sing in _Spanish_ , that’s where the magic’s at,” Wait, shit, did he just offer to sing solo for Keith? Sure, he did it with that first song, but he was just goofing around, he wasn’t actually _trying_.

“Well you better show me or I won’t believe you,” Keith teased.

Lance stood up, grabbing Keith’s phone to look for a song. He decided to take this seriously, rather than pull out his shitty Shakira impression. He settled on Juanes and picked his song “Angel” since it had a good beat and was kinda fun to sing.

Lance decided that he would show off a bit. He was having fun and didn’t need to be so worried about singing and dancing perfectly for Keith since Keith already complimented him on his half-assed moved from before.

He started with his back turned to Keith, singing the opening verse, and as the beat started up, he tapped the heel of his one foot, making sure to make the song _slightly_ more sexual than necessary, because if he could get Keith to experience some serious secondhand embarrassment, then that’d just be the highlight of Lance’s day.

About halfway through the second verse, he spun around and continued tapping his heel to the beat, but this time throwing in some weird arm movements that would probably pass as dancing in Keith’s eyes. The song had a good beat, but the opening was always weird to dance to. As the song continued, he realized that maybe singing _this_ song to Keith when he had no idea what it meant was a little embarrassing, if only for himself.

As he reached the chorus, he marched up to Keith to the beat, putting one foot in front of the other as if he was doing a red-carpet walk in heels, and jokingly held Keith’s chin as he sung, “ _Quiero ser tu ángel y amarte una y otra vez_ ,” and then proceeded to do the same walk away, continuing to dance. He looked back at Keith and saw that he was red again. While he normally would chalk it up to Keith being embarrassed, Keith also seemed to be… scowling almost? It was more of an angry pout. _Man, I’m really fucking good at upsetting Keith, aren’t I? Damnit._

He decided to end the song after the first run through of the chorus, because to Keith it would probably just sound like the same stuff again, plus he didn’t want to keep upsetting him. He hoped his slight change in demeanor wasn’t noticeable, but as soon as the song stopped, Keith spoke up, “Hey Lance, are you okay?” Lance looked at Keith, scowl completely gone and face showing a hint of concern.

Lance swallowed, “Yeah, I’m fine, why do you ask?”

“I don’t know, you just seemed upset. Was it because I asked you to sing?”

Lance didn’t understand, “Keith, what? No, I sang and danced because I wanted to, why would I be upset at that?”

Keith shrugged, “I don’t know. Are you sure you’re not upset?”

Lance smiled, despite still being confused. He thought _Keith_ was the one who was upset, “Yeah, no, really, I’m fine. I just thought that _you_ were upset after the whole, me grabbing your chin thing,”

Keith flushed for what had to be the billionth time today, “N-no, that was… that was fine,” Keith said in a small voice.

“Alright, cool, cool,” Lance said, suddenly feeling an odd tension in the air. Luckily, the tension was cut when there was a knock on the door.

“Keith? Are you and Lance in there? Can I come in?” Lance didn’t recognize the voice but figured it was Shiro.

Keith, with a still pink-tinted face, called back, “Yeah, come in,” and the door creaked open.

Lance saw Shiro in all his legendary glory. While Keith mentioned the prosthetic arm and his past and how cool Shiro was, Keith forgot to mention that the guy was fucking _ripped_. Lance barely noticed that Shiro was walking over to Lance until there was a hand in front of him.

“Hi, I’m Shiro, Keith’s older brother,”

Lance took his hand and shook it, “Yeah, I’m uh, I’m Lance. Keith’s told me a lot about you,”

“Really? Well same here, Lance, I’ve heard a lot about you,”

“You have?” Lance was taken aback. Keith talked about him that much to his brother?

Keith spoke up behind him, and an annoyed, “ _Shiro,_ ” rose out of his throat.

_Holy shit, Keith actually talks about me that much? I didn’t know he liked me that much, I kinda thought I annoyed him overall. He’s clearly embarrassed that his brother just spilled about how much he talks about me, so that tells me… what? What does that tell me? That I’m crushing on Keith and over-analyzing? Probably._

Shiro chuckled, “Relax, Keith, I was just making fun. Anyway, I came in to tell you two that dinner would be ready in about fifteen minutes,”

Lance wasn’t expecting a _dinner_ . Shit, he wasn’t even dressed right for this. He knew he should’ve worn nicer clothes. Was he sweaty now from all the dancing? Did he smell? He probably smelled, damnit. _Good first impression, Lanc_ e.

“Oh, okay great! I’m looking forward to it!”

Shiro chuckled again, “Haha, alright you two, don’t goof around too much, I know you still have work to do. It’s great to finally meet you, Lance. Good to put a face to the name,”

Lance smiled, a bit awkwardly, “Yeah, it was good to meet you too!” Shiro turned and walked out, shutting the door behind him.

Lance turned to Keith, “Sooo… you talk about me, huh?”

Keith hops back up on his bed, shaking his head, “Get back to work, Lance,”

——-

Lance sat at the breakfast bar with Keith as Shiro began to plate their dinners. Lance was at the end of the bar, closest to the door, while Keith sat next to him and then Shiro would be after that, closest to the wall. Lance swung his feet as the stools were tall enough that his feet didn’t touch the ground, which was quite frankly impressive because it’s not like Lance was short.

Shiro turned around, two plates in hand, setting them down in front of Lance and Keith, “Here you go, guys! Enjoy!”

Lance must have died. There’s no way that he’s about to eat some impressive looking surf and turf as a college student. On his plate was a beautiful looking ribeye steak covered in a creamy parmesan sauce, topped with grilled shrimp and served with a side of green beans. _Oh my god, he should meet Hunk_. Lance cut into the steak, noticing how tender it was. He made sure to get enough of the parmesan sauce on his piece before he dove in.

_Oh… my… god…_

Lance sunk down in his seat, groaning. He savored the bite, but swallowed it quickly so he could compliment Shiro, “Oh my god, Shiro, this is incredible, where’d you learn to cook like this?”

Shiro’s face brightened, and he smiled, “I’m glad you like it! Our parents had me cook sometimes, and when they were both busy at work I’d cook for Keith since he isn’t uh… very good at it,” he chuckled, then he jumped, “Ow! Keith! You kicked me!”

“Nah, never happened,”

Lance chuckled as Shiro shoved Keith, Keith laughing. _He has such a cute laugh._

Right as Lance shoved a huge green bean in his mouth, Shiro spoke up, “So Lance, what’s your major?”

Lance held up a finger, then pointed to his mouth, giving Shiro a “hold on” face. He finished chewing, then address Shiro, “Sorry about that, I’m a Marine Biology major. I’ve gone diving a lot and I love the ocean, so I thought it was a good fit,”

Shiro nodded, “Makes sense,” Shiro took a bite of his food, and once he finished chewing, he turned to Lance again, “Has Keith told you yet about how he used to be a super picky eater?”

Lance raised his eyebrows, shaking his head and covering his mouth as he said, “No, I haven’t,” because, yet again, Shiro had impeccable timing for talking to Lance when he had food in his mouth.

Keith glared at Shiro, “I wasn’t that bad!”

Shiro laughed, “Oh really? I happen to recall a time where you’d only eat chicken nuggets and tater tots,”

Lance snorted before popping a shrimp in his mouth. Keith glared at him now, “Oh like you’ve never been a picky eater?” he accused.

“Nope!” Lance stated proudly, popping the “p” at the end, “It’s hard to be a picky eater when you’ve got four other siblings and they all like different things. You kinda just… learn to like things you don’t like,” he shrugged, “I dunno, I liked having something my little sister liked and seeing how excited she got over it,”

Lance saw Keith’s face visibly soften, and Keith smiled. Shiro had a smile on his face too, and spoke up, “Yeah, I feel the same way,” he said elbowing Keith, “Even if it meant having spaghetti twice a week,”

Keith turned to Shiro, no doubt glaring at him, “You like spaghetti!”

“Yeah but I like _other things_ too, Keith. I doubt you even know my favorite food,” Shiro challenged.

“It’s simple, you like those lamb burgers you used to make all the time,”

Shiro shook his head, “Nope, you’ve never even had my favorite food. Better luck next time, Keith,”

Lance looked at Keith, who was utterly dumbfounded. Lance knew exactly the position Shiro was in, as Lance was the second oldest sibling in his family, so he knew everything about his little brother and sister. But Lance was also in the same position as Keith, with an older sibling that knew everything about Lance. He felt a little guilty now, realizing he didn’t know her favorite food either.

The three finished their food and left their plates in the sink after Shiro protested Lance’s offers to wash them (his mother didn’t raise an animal), and they moved into the living room. Lance sat on the corner of the couch nearest to the end table with Keith next to him, and Shiro at the other end. Shiro picked up the remote and turned the TV on, flipping through movies.

“Do you guys want to watch a movie? It doesn’t look like there’s anything on,” Shiro said, unhappily.

“Whatever you guys want to do is fine. I’m just along for the ride,”

“No no, Lance, you get to choose, you’re the guest,”

“Well I uh, choose for Keith to pick,”

Shiro laughed, “I don’t think you want to do that,” Shiro said, still flipping through movies.

Lance raised an eyebrow, “And why is that?”

Shiro gestured to the screen with the remote and Lance looked up. Under the “Recently Watched” tab was a long list of documentaries about space. _Secrets of the Solar System_ , _The New Frontier,_ _Supermassive Black Holes,_ and _The Real Death Star_ were just a few of the titles Lance saw. While Lance was never super hyped about space, he always thought it was really cool. It was kinda like… the sky’s ocean. An endless void to dive into, filled with the unknown. Okay, well we know a _bit_ more about the ocean than we do about all of space, but still. Space was pretty cool.

“Space documentaries? Those look cool! Why wouldn’t I want to watch one of those? I mean I’m more of an ocean guy myself but hey, space is like an ocean for the sky! They’re even called space- _ships_!”

Shiro sighed and shook his head, smiling, “I didn’t realize you shared the interest, you two are never gonna let me watch a real movie are you?” he said with a laugh, “How about a game? Keith, how do you feel about trivial pursuit?”

“That’s fine by me, you still have _yet_ to beat me at it,” Keith declared.

Lance fake-gasped, looking to Shiro, “Are you gonna take that? From your _little brother?_ ”

Shiro handed the two of them controllers, mumbling, “He’s a little shit is what he is,”

Lance snorted and Keith scoffed at Shiro. The game started up and they selected their characters. Shiro chose the buff chef character, Keith chose the punky DJ looking guy, and Lance chose the brunette woman wearing big sunglasses and a large hat, which prompted Keith to glance at Lance for an explanation.

“What? She’s cute! And I’m cute so _clearly,_ I should pick her,” Keith rolled his eyes, and they started the game.

Lance had never played this game before, and despite having played Trivial Pursuit before, it most certainly did _not_  give him any sort of edge. Initially, the game would ask questions like normal and everyone would answer, but then it started throwing different answer-picking methods at him so fast he could barely understand the mechanics initially. In one round, you had to be the first to pick the best answer and if you weren’t you had to race for the _second_ best answer and so on. Another round was an elimination round where it would give you a category of things and you had to pick which things belonged to that category, which was _not_ as easy as it sounded with the time they gave you. Luckily, when Lance was able to choose what category the questions would be, he picked entertainment because he knew they were all going to get the science ones right and the other categories were nowhere near his strong suit. He was doing alright, but Keith ultimately won by a mile.

“Keith, I swear, you’ve _memorized_ the answers, it’s not fair,” Shiro said in disbelief.

“It’s totally fair! I don’t cheat, I’m just smarter than you,” he said, a challenging smirk on his face.

“Round 2! We’re starting round 2!” Shiro pronounced loudly, Keith laughing at him.

Lance could stay here all night.

——-

The three of them decided that after the fourth round that they were finally done with the game, Keith having won two of the rounds, Lance winning one, and Shiro winning the last one. Lance looked at his phone and realized it was getting late and that he better head home. He thanked Shiro for the amazing meal, and Lance began to pack his things up in Keith’s room, Keith following him in.

“We should do this more often, this was fun! Shiro’s really cool, we should do a game night or something with you, me, Shiro, Hunk, and Pidge,” Lance began to babble as Keith packed up his homework too. Keith was working ahead, so he didn’t need to keep working once Lance left.

Keith stopped cleaning up when Lance said that and paused before he spoke, “Yeah, we should,” he said, hiding a small smile on his face.

Lance slung his backpack over his shoulder and turned to Keith, “Well space ranger, it’s time for me to head out,”

Keith quirked an eyebrow, “Alright, I’ll show you out. Are you okay walking home? Shiro could probably drive you if you wanted him to,”

“Nah, I’m okay, I don’t get as much exercise as I need to so I could use a good walk, it’s not that far,” he said, slipping on his sneakers.

Keith shifted his weight and opened the door for Lance, “Alright, well, let me know when you get home, okay?”

“Yeah, sure man. See you in class?” Lance said, offering a fond smile.

“Yeah, see ya,” Lance said, smiling and nodding on his way out, waving to Keith as he began to walk down the street.

Once he was a decent distance from Keith’s house, Lance’s smile became huge and dorky, and he hummed happily to himself as he walked into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might try to make a Spotify playlist of the songs I either mention/ listen to when I write different scenes just in case you guys want it.
> 
> Also I am so sorry about all the Calc 3 stuff, if you want a better visualization of what some of the stuff is you can definitely google it, cuz Calc 3 is literally just like “Hey I heard you like planes in 3D space, so we intersected your planes and bent some planes and then really just messed ‘em up, have fun finding their equations!”
> 
> Also, feel free to point out mistakes I have made in my fics, I really appreciate them because sometimes it’s really hard for me to re-read my stuff for errors, especially with how busy I am this semester.
> 
> Thank you guys for your support, I love all the love you guys have to offer <3


	5. New Characters Unlocked!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith asks Shiro and Allura to join the team, and while Pidge runs the new members through her gauntlet, Keith and Lance practice for their doubles rounds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! I'm so sorry it's been over two months since I last updated, but life got really busy but a lot of good things happened and I found out I'm going to be doing research this summer! I'm very excited. But enough of that!
> 
> Sadly, I have no fun links or songs for this chapter. Boo! I did listen to one song when I wrote one part of this, but I'll save that for the end. Kinda gives away part of the plot's tone. I'm not super proud of this chapter but hey, I wrote it! I pushed through! It's all for the fun of it anyway!
> 
> Without further ado, I present to you: Chapter 5! Enjoy!

“Hey, Shiro?” Keith said between bites of strawberry waffles. It was Monday morning, and Keith just got back from his run and was showered, but they still had some time before their classes, so Shiro decided to make waffles this morning, which was one of Keith’s favorite foods. People always thought he was weird because he likes waffles way better than pancakes, but pancakes are just too… fluffy. Waffles were more solid and Keith didn’t really want to feel like he was eating cake in the morning.

“Hey, Keith?” Shiro said in an identical tone.

“I have a favor to ask you.”

Shiro flipped the waffle maker then turned to Keith, smiling, “Uh oh, what am I signing up for?”

“A video game club?”

Shiro chuckled, “And why am I joining a video game club?”

Keith explained the situation to Shiro, of how they need six people to fully qualify and right now they only had four, and how important this was to the rest of the team, “They really want to try to win the whole competition this time, rather than just settle for stopping where the teams of four stop,”

Shiro considered for a moment, removing a fresh waffle from the press, “Well, it might be important to them, but is it important to you, too?”

Keith was caught off-guard by the question. He had never really considered it. Was it? Was this competition important to him? He guesses it wasn’t, after all, it doesn’t really spruce up his resume or anything like that. But… it meant a lot to the rest of them, and they were all really determined to win this competition. They all got really excited whenever they talked about it, and how they could totally win different rounds. Lance was the one most excited about winning the competition, and Keith really enjoyed the time they all got to spend together because of the club. So, in its own way, seeing them all so happy made the club important to him, just not in the way it is to them. Plus, it was fun.

Keith nodded his head, “Yeah, it is. I really wanna help them win this,” he said, meeting Shiro’s eyes.

Shiro shrugged, “Then sure, I’ll join. You’ve got yourself a fifth person. But where are you gonna find a sixth person? If you’re coming to me that must mean you guys don’t know many other people willing to do this,”

Keith scratched the back of his neck, “Well, yeah that was part two of the favor I was going to ask you… Allura’s pretty good at video games, right? I mean, she did kick your butt the other day in that Animal Crossing game,”

“Hey! She plays it _way_ more than I do, to the point where if I didn’t take that away from her, I’m pretty sure she’d start talking like those things. I only have the game because she has it,”

“Yeah but she didn’t even _ask_ you to get it, you just bought it yourself and got to the point where you both could go to that tropical island thing so she could, again, kick your ass,”

Shiro shoved Keith from over the counter, “Shut up. But yeah, she’s good at video games. Are you going to ask her, then?”

“I was kinda hoping you would?”

Shiro shook his head, “No way, kiddo. This isn’t my club, and I know nothing about the club I just joined, so I’m not gonna ask her to join something I know nothing about. You have to ask her yourself,”

Keith crossed his arms, pursing his lips, “Her and I don’t even talk that much, and you guys have been going out for what, close to six months now?”

“That’s only because she thinks you don’t like her, Keith. You never talk to her, and when you do, you give her very short and quiet responses, like you want her to leave you alone. Then you go hide in your room. I know that’s not what you want, but I tried explaining that to her and she wants to hear that from you so it doesn’t just sound like your brother is making excuses for you,” he said, a bit exasperated, “You and her really need to bond more, okay? Please? For me?”

Keith felt guilty for making her feel that way. He didn’t mean to, he was just nervous around her because he didn’t want to scare her off from Shiro. She seemed really cool, and the two of them were clearly made for each other, but Keith always just felt like he was going to do… something to mess it up. He didn’t exactly know _what_ he would do to mess it up, but there was definitely _something_.

He let out a long breath he didn’t realize he was holding, “Okay, I’ll ask her tomorrow after class,”

Shiro beamed, “Great! Now eat your waffles, you have to leave soon,”

\-----

Somehow, Pidge was in her seat before Keith was, scrolling through some sort of feed on her phone, coffee in her other hand. He sat down and began pulling out his notebook and pen, “Hey Pidge,”

She offered him a small smile, the best she could do in the morning, “Hey Keith, how was your weekend?”

Keith didn’t really want to talk about having Lance over just yet, since he would be absolutely grilled for every single detail if he told her, so he settled to omit that, “Pretty good, got some homework done,”

“Cool. Hey, remember that we’re meeting up this week to practice our doubles categories. Same time, same place, okay?”

Keith nodded, “Sounds good. Oh, yeah and I got my brother on board with the club, so I’ll be bringing him with me on Wednesday. I, uh, still need to ask Allura,”

“Allura?”

“C’mon, you’ve met her before. Shiro’s girlfriend? Silver hair?”

“Oh yeah! Her! I still wanna ask her whether she dies it or if somehow that’s… natural,”

“Please don’t do that at the meeting tonight,”

Pidge smiled deviously, “No promises, but seriously, get to asking her, because if she says no, then we need to find a sixth person, _fast,_ and it’d be nice to have Shiro actually practicing doubles tomorrow,”

It only now just hit Keith that she said they were doing doubles practice tonight. He knew he and Lance were already going to be together as a team, so in anticipation for tonight he took a deep breath and exhaled, saying “Yeah. Yeah I’ll do that,”

\-----

Keith walked through the theft detectors at the entrance of the library. Even though he literally never had anything to worry about—he wasn’t a criminal, after all—he was still worried that for some reason they would still go off when he walked through it. They didn’t, so he continued toward the front desk, looking for Allura. He approached the older-looking woman sitting at the desk who looked less than thrilled to be there, “Hi, I’m looking for Allura?”

The lady looked up over her glasses, pointing toward a back corner of the library, “Paleontology,” she said in a deep, raspy voice no doubt the result of many years of smoking.

Keith nodded his head, “Thank you, ma’am,” he said, moving towards where she pointed. Allura had an odd affinity for paleontology, even though her major was in environmental science. As he rounded the corner of a bookcase, he saw her gently placing books back on the shelf from a small cart that was practically overflowing with books. She wore a small name badge on the top left side of her shirt, and her hair was pulled into a high ponytail. Keith walked down the aisle toward her. She turned and looked at him in surprise, probably not expecting to see Keith here, let alone looking for her.

“Hello there, Keith!  How’ve you been? I haven’t seen you in a while; you’ve been out of the house a lot recently,”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets, “I’ve been good, how about you?”

“I’ve been very well. And how are your classes? Perfect as always I presume?”

He chuckled, “I mean, not perfect but close enough,” she chuckled at his response, and then they fell into a lull. He spoke back up, deciding to just rip this off like a Band-Aid, “So Allura, I have a… favor to ask you,”

“Oh? And what would that be, Keith?”

Keith explained the situation to her, and told her that Shiro was already on board, “And I thought you would be a good addition to the team, so uh, will you join?”

Allura clasped her hands together and smiled widely, “Oh Keith, of course! That sounds like fun! I hope I’m not a burden on the team,” She held out her hand, “You’ve got yourself a new teammate,”

He smiled softly and shook her hand, “Welcome to the team,” he nodded, and turned to leave. He stopped right before he rounded the corner and turned back to her, “Oh, yeah, and our next meeting is Wednesday night. If you come to Shiro’s we’ll walk over together. And thank you,”

“No problem, Keith. I’ll see you then,” she smiled and waved him goodbye.

\-----

Lance lay on his bed, head hanging off the edge so the world was upside-down to him. It was almost time for the meeting, and he had nothing to do until then, so he was bored. He had been pestering Pidge, but she just told him to wait until Keith gets here to be annoying. He was getting impatient, “Piiidge, why don’t we meet in the club room anymooore?”

She rubbed the bridge of her nose, clearly tired of answering Lance’s endless questions, “Because, Lance, then we’re giving away our strategy to the other teams, _and_ you complained about the chairs there, remember? Plus, we have way more games here and I am not bringing my collection over there, because they’re gonna get lost in that unorganized atrocity they call a games library. It’s not even categorized!”

Lance laughed, “Amen, Pidgeotto,” There was a knock on their door, and Lance flipped over, “I’ll get it!” He hopped off of his bed and bounded over to the door. He opened it up to see Keith, Shiro, and a beautiful white-haired maiden with sky-blue eyes and a complexion that was beyond perfect. Lance swore his heart stopped for a minute.

Shiro then spoke up, “Hi Lance, it’s good to see you again!” he said as he walked past Lance and into the room.

Keith made introductions, “Guys, this is my older brother Shiro and this is Allura, his girlfriend,”

Allura bowed a little bit, which Lance thought was adorable, “It’s very nice to meet you all,”

Lance shouldn’t have been surprised that she’s taken, but he wasn’t really interested in her anyway. She was just gorgeous, and he would never deny that someone is gorgeous. _Like Keith_ , he though, and then immediate shook his head to dissipate the thought, _OH my god, McClain, get a hold of yourself_.

“So uh, Lance, you’ve met Shiro before?” Pidge asked. _Crap_ , Lance mentally slapped himself for this. He never told Hunk or Pidge about his and Keith’s little hang out session, and wasn’t ready to get into the details of it, so he decided to just downplay it and… not mention everything.

“Oh, yeah,” he laughed, “I was having some trouble in calc so Keithy boy here came to the rescue and helped me out. We were just doing homework and then Shiro made this _amazing_ steak and shrimp dinner that you would not _believe_! Hunk, you _have_ to talk to him about it, seriously man,” Lance saw Shiro look at Keith quizzically, since Shiro knew the two of them were goofing off for a _while_. Keith just waved him off nonchalantly, understanding Lance’s distress.

“Oh, okay,” Pidge said— skeptical but satiated for now.

“Well welcome to our dorm! Our nice, clean dorm,” Lance said, gesturing to the entirety of the room.

Pidge shook her head, “Lance never cleans so when he does he always wants recognition,”

“Pidge! Rude! I do not!”

Allura and Shiro chuckled, and Keith shook his head, smiling. Pidge clapped, “Alright, now that we’re all here, we can get down to business. Shiro, Allura, I’m going to need you to come over here to the TV, you can sit on the bean bag chairs and we’ll get started with your evaluation,”

“Evaluation?” Allura asked

Keith shook his head, “She’s just gonna see what types of games your good at, it’s not an actual test,”

“It totally is a test! I’m testing their abilities! Now, Keith, Lance, you guys can go figure out what doubles categories you’re going to enter and then practice, since you two haven’t officially worked together yet,”

Lance saluted Pidge, “Righty-o, Captain!” Lance said, spinning on his heel and heading for his bed, where his laptop was situated. Keith was a little uncomfortable sitting at a desk to play games, since he normally played on his bed, but this wasn’t his room so he wasn’t going to say anything.

For the competition, there are singles, doubles, and teams of three, four, five, and finally, six. Schools can have multiple teams enter the competition in as many of these categories as they want. Now that they have a fully assembled team, they could enter all of the categories, which was the goal. If you do that and win in each category, you get an overall award for your team, rather than categorical awards. Not everyone has to win each category, you only need one victory in each category, but it’s nice to win the individual awards.

Within each category there are different types of competitions. For singles and doubles, the categories are very similar, as there are not many differences between most single-player and co-op games except for an extra set of hands. Some games are exclusively co-op, but that is beside the point. For doubles, there is a category for just about any game type. Trivia, stealth games, dance and rhythm, shooters, puzzle games—literally any genre you can think of, even Wii sports!

Pairs are able to choose what categories they want to enter, and can enter in as many as they want. They will get a trophy for winning the doubles round, which will also indicate what category they entered. Each of the trophies is different, so it’s pretty neat the way it’s carried out. It really makes you want to enter everything. There is also a mixed category in which, if you think you’re good at pretty much everything, you can enter that and it’ll take a game from three random categories that you have to play.

To win in doubles, you have to go through three rounds, trying to beat the other team in either best time, best score, or some other factor like not dying at all. This makes the mixed category extremely difficult, so most people didn’t enter it.

Lance ran through the categories with Keith, “Okay, well we can rule out dancing and rhythm games since you have no sense of rhythm, we are _not_ going for the mixed category since we both have some fatal flaws and shouldn’t bother wasting time on it. How much trivia do you know?”

“Me? Not much, unless it’s about space or engineering,”

“Okay, so no trivia then. Hunk and Pidge probably have that category covered anyway, we have to watch them when they go, it’s pretty ridiculous. So I guess considering you’re our resident stealth master, we should try and enter that category, and then uh… I mean I’m pretty good with shooters but you…”

“Yeah?”

“Aren’t.”

“Yeah, we should probably stay away from them then,”

“Agreed,”

Lance and Keith scroll through the categories list available on the Castle’s website. It was alphabetized, which made looking at the list easier. Each of them would say a category name and the other would shake their head and go “Nah, I’m no good at that,” They wanted to enter at least two of the categories just so if they didn’t win one, they won the other (or at least that was the hope).

After about twenty minutes of going back and forth and getting frustrated over not finding anything, _and_ having to go back through the list for categories neither of them suggested before, Keith ended up finding one that sounded interesting, “How about Communication?”

“Communication?” Lance asked as he scrolled down to it.

“Yeah, I mean we talk a lot, so that probably counts for something,” Keith said, shrugging.

Lance read silently for a moment and then groaned, “Oh god, I know one of the games we’d have to play, it’s in the lineup every year,” He sat for another second, and then slapped his hands down on this thighs, “You know what? Let’s do it, let’s see how we are a communicating, Mullet,” Keith was interested in what game Lance was talking about, but figured he’d find out soon enough.

They decided that since Shiro and Allura were being “tested” by Pidge right now and they would probably get yelled at for being too loud, so they decided that a stealth game might be the best to practice with right now. However, picking a game to practice with was no easier than picking a category. Either the game had too heavy a reliance on shooting for Keith, or there were no guns and Lance wasn’t having it.

“Keith, you can’t avoid shooters forever,”

Keith scoffed, starting to get a little annoyed with Lance being hypocritical, “Yeah? Well you can’t avoid stealth games forever, especially considering that’s our category,”

“Whatever,” Lance pouted, and went back to looking for games.

After another ten minutes, Keith groaned, “Finally! Lance, Splinter Cell: Blackout, it’s even got shooting for you” he said, leaning back and rubbing at his tired eyes while Lance read about the game.

After a minute, Lance nodded his head, “I think we’ve got a game we can work with, Kogane. Load it up,”

Lance and Keith each went through the tutorial independently, and then they went through the co-op tutorials, showing them how they can work together to perform different assassinations and such. Lance, so far, was very happy with his performance in maintaining his cover while being able to shoot. Keith was simply enjoying taking down enemies from behind with his knife and not agro-ing anybody. Lance occasionally got shot at, but they hadn’t died yet, so that was a good sign.

They finished their first mission and moved onto the second one, where they were blatantly told from the beginning to use stealth, or they would have a very difficult time completing the mission. Keith was hoping that Lance would heed the warning, but his hopes were crushed when Lance rounded a corner to rush a nearby guard. He took him down without anybody else noticing, but it was by pure luck that he wasn’t seen.

“Lance, you can’t keep doing that, we’re going to fail the mission,” Keith said, sneaking up behind another guard nearby and taking him down.

“Relax, Keith, I’ve got this,” Lance said as he rolled behind a stack of crates for cover. He peered over the crates and marked two targets, “Alright, Keith, you see my marks? Go for the one on the right, I’ll hit the guy on the left. On three, ready? One… Two… Three!”

Keith performed a silent kill of the one guy, but he finished his kill before Lance, who had alerted his guard and was now locked in a shooting match with him. Keith wasn’t able to help because if he got too close, the guard would whip around and kill him since he was already aggroed, and god knows Keith couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. He hid behind another stack of crates nearby, on the opposite side of Lance. Keith turned in his chair in the room and looked at Lance, “Your mess, Lance,”

“You’re not even gonna try to help me?”

“Nope, good luck,” he leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head, a small, shit-eating grin plastered on his face. He watched in amusement as Lance popped his head up from behind the crates and was immediately eliminated, thus costing them the mission. They would have to start the mission entirely over again, “Are you ready to listen to me now about being stealthy?” Keith said.

Lance pouted, “We can do it my way! I know we can, we’re just doing this in _challenge mode_ ,”

They restarted the level, and failed in a fairly similar way. Keith was getting a little annoyed with Lance not listening to him, and Lance was getting mad at Keith for not listening to _him_. Lance was already down, having aggroed too many guards at once on _both_ of them.

“Keith, you have to come pick me up!”

Keith’s character was currently locked in a shooting match with a guard, and Keith was _definitely_ going to lose if he tried to aim at him. He was relying on blind-fire, which was working out less-than-spectacularly, “I’m a little busy here, Lance! Crawl over!”

Either Lance didn’t hear him or didn’t care to listen, because he continued arguing, “Keith you _have_ to come pick me up! We’re going to fail the mission so it won’t _matter_ if you kill that guy!”

“I can’t come get you because then he’ll kill _me_!”

Right after Keith barked at Lance, Lance’s character bled out, causing them to fail the mission again. They both groaned. Once more, they restarted wordlessly and they failed again, this time with Lance getting shot in the back by a guard that popped out from around a corner that neither of them had seen.

Lance groaned, laying down on his bed and covering his face in frustration. He was so frustrated at this point that he was practically shouting, “Dude, you needed to shoot that guy! I got killed _again_!”

Keith turned to him, just as frustrated at Lance as he was at him, “That’s only because you ran in, guns blazing, for the fourth time in a row! Clearly it’s not working, Lance!”

“Only because you’re not SHOOTING HIM!”

Keith stood up, putting his hand to his chest, “Yeah, I’m fucking bad at shooters Lance! Remember?!”

“You could at least _try_ Keith!”

“I _am_ trying, Lance! Jesus Christ, you’re impossible!” Keith was about to go on, but he held his tongue and growled. He looked around the room, and all eyes were on them. It had been a stressful two hours, and Keith wasn’t going to stay here. He couldn’t. He needed to get out. His heart was racing and he could hear it in his ears. Without saying a word, he started to pack up his stuff, not bothering to shut down his laptop before hastily shoving it in his bag.

Lance’s face, one minute full of anger and frustration, suddenly melted into concern, with an underlying hint of anger still present, “What are you doing? Where are you going? Keith!”

Keith kept packing, not saying anything. Maybe he was being dramatic, but all he could think was that he needed to get out. He needed to leave and go outside and just _leave_.

“Keith, fucking talk to me, where are you going?” Lance demanded, getting up from his bed. There was clear concern in his voice. Everyone else in the room remained silent, watching the altercation between the two take place, which was _not_ helping Keith’s need to get out.

Keith finished putting all of his things in his bag, slung it over one shoulder, and walked to the door. Quietly, he stated, “I’m leaving,” He couldn’t hear what Lance started to say before the door loudly slammed behind him.

\-----

Keith left the dorm and walked on auto-pilot. This isn’t the first time he’s done something like this. Whenever he’d have a breakdown or got really, really upset over something, or even if his day was just kinda shitty, he would walk to the center of campus. There, there was a small field that was supposed to be a small park for the students to relax or play games in. There were several benches along a walking path, and on the far side of the park there was one of the largest and only Weeping Willow trees for miles around. It was planted in dedication to some sort of University birthday, but Keith never got around to reading the plaque.

Keith gravitated toward the tree every time he came here, and this time was no different. He made a beeline for it, cutting across the middle of the field and across several sections of the walking path. He had to go around a few garbage cans and benches, but when he reached the tree he dropped his bag on the ground and sat with his back up against it.

There was a gentle breeze tonight, and Keith always found the sway of the branches relaxing since they flowed like water. He tried to calm himself by breathing in time with them. He sat silently, breathing in time with the sway of the willow’s branches for about two minutes before he realized that it wasn’t working. He couldn’t make his mind be _quiet_.

_I didn’t even do anything wrong. Lance wasn’t listening to me, he knows I’m not good at shooters and we found a game that didn’t have to be a shooter. But then he goes and forces it to be a shooter. I was doing just fine sneaking, but he insisted on me having to shoot. I was just doing what the game wanted me to._

He took a second, thinking about what Lance was saying. He and Lance were doing pretty well, initially. But then Lance wanted to do a “challenge mode,” whatever that was supposed to mean. Keith thought the game was already pretty challenging. After thinking about Lance’s view for a minute, he began to worry.

_Shit, I’m an asshole. I’ve already fucked up mine and Lance’s relationship, and over a stupid game. Damnit… damnit, damnit, damnit…_

His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he took it out. Lance’s name popped up on the screen, but Keith wasn’t ready to talk to him yet. Keith wasn’t ready to talk to anybody yet. He felt a frustration welling up in him, a combination of being mad at Lance and mad at himself, but mostly, his frustration was directed at himself. He felt a lump form in his throat. It was rare that he cried, but on occasions like this where he was simultaneously angry at Lance for being thick-headed, at himself for being and asshole, and maybe a little heartbroken over losing a relationship that never was, he cried.

He didn’t want to though, so he got up, figuring walking around would calm him down. He thought he was just being overdramatic but didn’t know how to _stop_ feeling overdramatic. He kept taking deep breaths in time with the wind, but then his phone went off again. And again. And again. It must have gone off seven times before Keith ripped it out of his pocket and threw it in the direction of his bag. Keith wanted to scream. Everything was getting on his nerves now, and the fact that he couldn’t calm down was upsetting him more, and he was just spinning in a vicious circle of self-hatred, heartbrokenness, and overstimulation. He just wanted everything to be quiet. Sensory overload was a horrible thing that made Keith anxious, and it always seemed like there was nothing he could do to stop it, which only upset him more and thus caused everything around him to irritate him more.

Keith needed somewhere to channel his energy into, and he snarled, feeling the urge to fight. He wanted to punch or kick or do _something_. Gyms were closed, so it’s not like he could go to one. He tried to think of what he could do but the wind picked up and the tree rusted louder, and the wind blew his hair into his eyes irritatingly, which pushed Keith over the edge. Without thinking, he turned and punched the tree, only showing a bit of restraint at the last minute after realizing what he was doing.

He pulled his hand into his chest, “Motherf-… Shit! Fuck, fuck!”

He sat back down against the tree, cradling his hand. He opened and closed his hand, still able to move all of his fingers without much pain. The majority of the pain was the stinging sensation from the fresh cuts on his knuckles from the rough bark. He winced as he opened his hand fully, the skin being forced together and irritating the cuts.

Keith is able to steady his breathing now, and his heartbeat has slowed now, no longer a drum in his ears. The world seemed to quiet down in that moment. As he looked out over one side of the field and into the night sky, he let out a shaky breath. _I really did fuck up, didn’t I? God, why am I so dramatic. He’s going to think I’m insane, punching a fucking tree. Well, good job, you fucked it up like you thought you would._ He was disappointed in himself. He felt the lump at the top of his throat, choking him, making it feel like it was impossible to breathe even though he was breathing just fine.

He saw his vision blur and blinked quickly. He still didn’t want to cry. He felt like he didn’t deserve to cry for being a huge asshole to Lance and for making a spectacle out of himself and for punching a damn tree like an idiot.

As he stared into the sky, calming down, he heard footsteps approach him. Only one person knew where he was right now, and he wouldn’t dare tell anybody else about it. He knew it was special for Keith and the place Keith went to for comfort when he wanted to be alone for a while.

Shiro always knew when to show up though, “Hey, mind if I sit?”

Keith didn’t respond, didn’t move.

Shiro sat anyway, “They’re worried about you, ya know,”

Still nothing.

Shiro sighed, “What happened, Keith?” He said, concern oozing from his tone.

Keith let out a single, “Ha,” before shaking his head a little and looking back up at the sky, “What didn’t happen? I messed everything up,” he said, smiling in the way that people smile in the face of disaster.

Shiro prodded, carefully, “Messed what up?”

Keith sat forward, staring at the ground while still holding his arm, “My relationship with Lance, the team, their chance of winning the competition I roped you into. I’ve ruined everything. I made a huge idiot out of myself by storming out of there like a giant baby, and Lance probably hates me now,”

“Why would he hate you?”

“Because we were fighting and I was a huge asshole to him?” he said in a venomous tone. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shiro smile and chuckle, which was not helping his mood, “What?” he snapped.

“He doesn’t, you know,”

“He doesn’t what?”

“He doesn’t hate you, Keith,” Shiro said, turning and facing him.

Keith didn’t believe him, “How do you know?” he said, bitterly.

“Because, Keith, I wasn’t the one who was initially going to come after you. Of course I knew I would, but before I could even move, Lance was already over to me and asking where you were going and where he could find you and if _you_ hate _him_. I knew where you were heading, but I didn’t think you’d want to see him right now, and if you did, I thought it was best you didn’t. He was worried about you, Keith, and he’s probably beating himself up just as much as you are over this,” Shiro said, scooting closer to Keith and putting an arm around him, “I promise he doesn’t hate you, Keith. Didn’t you get his texts?”

Keith pulled his legs up to his chest and rested his arms on them, “I didn’t read them,”

Shiro nodded, rubbing Keith’s arm, “I understand,” he said, and they sat in silence for a minute, looking out on the field and to the sky, “You two _were_ being pretty ridiculous though. You know it’s just a game, right?” Keith huffed out an airy laugh, then settled back into silence.

They basked in the silence for a minute before Keith spoke up, “…sorry, Shiro,”

“It’s not me you need to apologize to, Keith,” he said, standing up and brushing himself off, “C’mon, we’re gonna head home and bandage your hand,” He extending his arm out to Keith, which Keith took, weakly. He was exhausted from his breakdown. He doesn’t know why it happens, why he get so worked up over little stresses and feels so overwhelmed, and he hates when it does, but Shiro has always managed to pull him out of it.

They walked home, Keith completely silent while Shiro told Keith about the gauntlet Pidge ran them through. It was not until they got home and Keith was lying in bed, hand fully bandaged, that he checked his messages:

_~FrancotiradorAzul~ is Online._

~FrancotiradorAzul~: keith?

~FrancotiradorAzul~: keith i’m sorry

~FrancotiradorAzul~: please say something keith, im worried

~FrancotiradorAzul~: where did you go?

~FrancotiradorAzul~: i didnt mean to make you storm off like that

~FrancotiradorAzul~: damnit keith would you respond?!!

~FrancotiradorAzul~: im sorry, im not mad im just really worried about you

~FrancotiradorAzul~: i deserve this, I wasnt listening to you and i was being stupid and idk i guess i didnt see how frustrated you were actually getting until it was too late and we were both already mad

~FrancotiradorAzul~: please let me know when you get these and read these

~FrancotiradorAzul~: just let me know youre okay keith, im sorry

Keith felt extremely guilty now, and while he still wasn’t ready to talk, he decided that he needed to send Lance a message to let him know he was okay.

_xXInvisible-BladeXx is Online._

_xXInvisible-BladeXx: I’m sorry I stormed out. Meet me at the café tomorrow?_

~FrancotiradoAzul~: sure, i’ll see you there

\-----

Back at Lance’s dorm, he was absolutely freaking out. He was pacing around the center of the room, with Pidge, Hunk, and Allura completely bewildered by what just happened. Lance was switching between being worried about Keith and being furious with him. He had just sent probably his 11th text to Keith, who had yet to respond, which was not helping Lance calm down.

“What the fuck just happened? What the FUCK just happened?!” Lance said, voice rising in pitch, “Why did he just walk out like that? What, can he not use WORDS?” He quickly took a deep breath, and continued, “Is he okay? Like where did he go, what’s he going to do? God, he hates me doesn’t he? Shit, shit he hates me now, I fucked it up,” he was rambling at light speed, “What am I going to do? I’ve ruined the whole team just because I was being an idiot and we got too mad at each other and no, we didn’t just STOP playing the game, we kept GOING! Because that was CLEARLY a good idea! It turned out SO well!” he slumped down on the center of the floor, running his hands through his hair. Quietly, he groaned, “God, why did we both get so mad? I don’t get it,”

Allura crouched down next to Lance, “Lance, it really wasn’t that bad,”

Lance shook his head in disbelief, “Whoa whoa whoa, were you _here_?! We exploded at each other!  How was that not the worst possible scenario?”

“Well, you guys didn’t literally kill each other so it could’ve gone much worse,” Pidge said, as if it was obvious.

“And besides,” Hunk said, standing up from his chair and walking to sit down next to Lance and Allura, “I think Keith just left because he didn’t want it to get any worse, ya know? He didn’t want it to _get_ to that point,”

Lance sighed, “But why couldn’t we just talk?”

“The talking part was kind of the problem, Lance. You weren’t listening to his suggestions and he wasn’t listening to you either,” Pidge crossed her arms.

“Listen, Lance, Keith is alright. He does this when he gets upset. He knows he’s not very good with people, so when he thinks he is going to do more harm than good, he isolates himself until he calms down. He doesn’t do this often. In fact, I’ve only experienced this once when Shiro and I first began our relationship. Someone was making fun of Shiro’s prosthetic and Keith immediately got up and the two of them got in a bit of a spat, which ended with the man leaving the restaurant we were in. Keith came back for his jacket and left without saying a word, and Shiro explained it to me later,” She put a hand on Lance’s shoulder, “It’s not my place to explain it, but know that he doesn’t hate you, Lance. I think you’re special to him and that’s why he left, because he didn’t want to ruin what you two have,”

Lance bit the inside of his cheek, “Okay, I guess you’re right,” Lance took out his phone, hoping for a response from Keith to magically appear, but her didn’t hear anything yet, “But what do I do now?”

“Just wait. Keith will come around when he’s ready. For now, sulking isn’t going to help. How about some Mario Kart?”

Lance smiled a lopsided smile, appreciative of the gesture, “Yeah, sure,” he said, grabbing the hand she had extended.

“Now that you’re back to normal, I just have to say: You two are ridiculous. You know it’s just a game, right? The fate of the world does not really rest in your hands? Maybe laugh at the chaos you’re causing once in a while, McClain,” Pidge said, adjusting her glasses.

Lance chuckled, “Oh shut up, Pidge, you get just as heated over Faster than Light,”

“I do not!”

Lance and Allura played for a while, and Hunk and Pidge eventually joined in. Hunk was dominating them, as usual, and they were all laughing and playfully shouting at each other.

After a while, his phone chimed, “‘I’m sorry I stormed out. Meet me at the café tomorrow?’”

Allura smiled, “I told you, now come on, I want a rematch,” she said, elbowing his side.

Lance smiled a lopsided smile, appreciative of the gesture, “Yeah, okay,” he said, putting his phone down and starting a new round. Lance still wasn’t entirely convinced that everything was okay, as there was still this pang of guilt sitting in his stomach for being so ridiculously aggravated over a dumb game, but for now, he’d settle for knowing that Keith was okay.

For knowing that they were going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, the song I mentioned at the beginning is "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" by Set It Off. I kinda had my own breakdown while writing Keith's breakdown? I was studying for a physics exam and some small things about it got to me so I used those negative emotions to write Keith's, which is why they might seem a little extreme. Sensory overload is a bitch, I gotta say. Listening to angry music can help sometimes, if it's the only thing I can hear.
> 
> Anyway, the next chapter will have some feel-good vibes goin' on, I already am planning it, so hopefully it won't be too long before I write it up! I'm sorry if this one was short than expected, but it's hard to write 10K word chapters so it's easier for me to write parts of the story and cut it off where it feels natural.
> 
> Thank you for reading and please leave kudos if you liked it, it makes me really happy <3 Also, I respond to comments! Feel free to leave one! As always, spelling errors or grammatical errors are always good to point out to me!

**Author's Note:**

> Whew! So a bit of a short chapter just to get my feet wet, but I hope to keep each chapter around this long or longer, generally anywhere from 2K to 5K words a chapter is ideal.
> 
> If you'd like to leave a comment I'd appreciate the feedback!


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